Romeo Gavioli is mostly known as Donato’s high-pitched male singer, who really shines in some of that orchestra’s most iconic, lyrical songs, such as Mi serenata and Amando en silencio, and my personal favorite, the lesser-known version of Mendocina (a vals mostly known in its Laurenz rendition). In the past, I always strongly preferred Horacio Lagos’ voice, a deeper voice that is much more prolific in Donato’s recordings, and while I am still glad Lagos’s robust, perhaps more accessible voice was prioritized, his voice can also sound a bit superficial at times. In contrast, I think Gavioli has a sweet, emotional and very sensitive quality to his singing, and it’s like an acquired taste to me that I appreciate more and more as time goes by.

A few years ago, when I had an obsession for a while with the tango Pregonera by De Angelis, I stumbled upon a rare version that was surprisingly good and I ended up liking it more than the original. Some tango dancers who read this may not be aware, but Gavioli was not only a singer, but also a musician (violin), and after leaving Donato’s orchestra in 1943, he went on to found his own band in his native Uruguay. This happened during what was still the height of the Golden Age of tango music, and that’s reflected in the musical style of the orchestra: we can hear a type of music that’s geared towards the dancers, just like Argentina’s big orchestras in those years.

That’s a bit surprising, considering that there was often a tension between the ambitions of singers and the ambitions of orchestra leaders, as the singers wanted to shine like a soloist, just as Gardel once did, while the musicians wanted a singer to blend into the (danceable) sound of an orchestra. This meant that popular singers would often abandon these orchestras, even the best ones, to pursue a career of a soloist, forming their own orchestra or simple band of guitar players simply to back them up and give them a musical “background” for their voice to shine. However, Gavioli’s orchestra doesn’t entirely follow this pattern: even though he was the one and only ‘star’ of the orchestra, giving his own voice ample space as probably the single biggest attraction in the music, the orchestra’s sound is still quite danceable and his singing is not as overbearing as in the usual tangos meant for listening.

(Want to know more? If you’d like to understand some background behind ‘tango canción’, the kind of music most soloists were striving for, you can find out more in this post. Also, I’ve previously written a blog about Roberto Flores, who also combined becoming a soloist singer with successfully leading an orchestra of danceable tango music.)

We could spend some more time looking at the ins and outs of Gavioli’s orchestra, but due to the constraints of these short blogs, let’s focus on why I like this orchestra’s version of Pregonera so much. I personally think there’s an emotional intensity to this version that’s unmatched by the versions of De Angelis and D’Arienzo, which has a lot to do with Gavioli’s way of singing that I described above as having a ‘sweet, emotional and very sensitive’ quality.
But there’s also something peculiar going on in the orchestration of this particular version: usually, the third and last parts of a tango lyric are not sung in the recordings of the big dance orchestras, but here, it’s put on center stage because the order becomes (strangely) reversed. The first half of the first stanza is used as some sort of slow intro in the beginning, but then the actual main singing (around 1 minute and 10 seconds in) starts with the full third stanza, and that part of the lyrics is quite emotional and melancholic, and some of these lines get repeated at the end of the song. Lastly, the slow, dramatic introduction and ending also play their part in the overall emotional intensity of this version.

All in all, I think you might understand how this song may come as a pleasant surprise to some of my followers, considering how little-known Gavioli’s orchestra is. Of course, his band’s sound is no match for the best Argentine orchestras like Troilo, D’Arienzo and Di Sarli, but it still sounds decent and many people are already familiar with and fond of Gavioli’s voice, due to his contribution to some of Donato’s finest recordings.

Note: the parentheses in the lyric below show the part that remains unsung in this version. I decided to maintain the original order of the lines here, because it will help you understand the ‘story’ of the lyric. In the subtitle video you will notice the order that Gavio chose instead.

Pregonera (Flower seller)
Lyrics: José Rótulo
Composition: Alfredo de Angelis

Princesita rubia de marfil
dueña de mi sueño juvenil,
la que pregonando flores
un día de abril,
recuerdo por las calles de París.
(“Una rosa roja para usted,
roja como el ansia de querer,
rosas y claveles blancos,
blancos de ilusión”
y sigue la princesa su pregón.)

Blonde princess of alabaster skin,
mistress of my youthful dreams…
she whom I remember, one April day,
selling flowers on the streets of Paris.
(“A red rose for you,
red like the desire to love…
roses and white carnations,
white like a dream of hope…”
and so my princess, calling out, passes by.)

“Un cariño y un clavel
para el ojal, para el querer.”
El clavel es de ilusión,
mi corazón rojo punzó.
Ay, la tarde va muriendo,
y el pregón me va siguiendo.
“Un cariñito y un clavel”
sólo el clavel, lo que quedó.

“A caress and a carnation,
for your jacket, for love.”
A carnation for hope,
for my yearning heart.
And as the evening fades,
her cry still follows me.
“A caress and a carnation!”
now, only the carnation remains.

Princesita rubia de marfil,
dónde fue tu risa tan sutil,
junto con tus flores muertas
muere mi ilusión.
Y escucho el eco tenue de tu voz.
Es como un susurro sin cesar,
que va despertando mi ansiedad,
es mi fantasía loca
que vuelve a soñar.
De nuevo soy feliz con tu cantar.

Blonde princess of alabaster skin,
what has become of your subtle laugh?
Along with your dead flowers
my hope dies too.
But as I hear the faint echo of your voice,
like a ceaseless whisper,
it awakens a feeble hope.
It’s my infatuation…
making me dream again.
Your song… making me happy again.