Luiggi Stermieri is another of the many Italians who came to Argentina in search of a better life from Europe once again at war, after surviving a Nazi concentration camp. And La Plata ended up being his place in the world to develop his passion, music. He played accordion but became a luthier and rubbed shoulders with great tango stars, such as Aníbal Troilo or Astor Piazzolla.
A whole life story of effort and improvement. He was born on May 18 at the beginning of the 20th century in the beautiful and small city of Carpi, which currently has 71,000 inhabitants and is located in northern Italy, in the province of Modena. He was part of a family with five siblings. The reality was not easy after the miseries left by the First World War; the accounts were tight and there were many mouths to feed. Luiggi grew up and always kept his love for music, even in the most difficult moments, according to what he passed on as a family until the last days of his life in our city.
“All his life he dedicated himself to writing, playing the piano or chromatic accordion or repairing instruments, especially the bandoneon and accordion. He started composing at the age of 12 ”
Jorge
Nieto de Stermieri
In 1939 came the Second World War, which lasted until 1945. Germany invaded Poland. The entire European territory and the great world powers, such as the United States, were involved. The war conflict claimed the lives of more than 70 million innocent people.
And Luiggi could be one of them. They took him as a prisoner at the beginning of 1944 in the concentration camp set up by Italian fascism and German Nazism in the town of Fossoli, Carpi. In August of that year, when the war was ending, he was one of the 17 people who managed to survive that horror. A past full of atrocities that left him wounded and that is why he sought new horizons.
His six grandchildren -among other relatives- are the ones who keep alive the memory of this Italian who went through the hard blows of life, the mockery of the war from a concentration camp and still, despite everything, always kept a smile .
RINA, ABOUT MUSA
It was the music that, despite the sadness, brought him closer to Rina, the love of his life. “He would go from door to door, on a bicycle with her accordion and they would throw him a few coins to cheer up the families,” recalled his grandson, Jorge, from La Plata. On one of those afternoons he ran into her, returned to her house, took a pencil and paper, and went back to look for her, but this time with a surprise. He handed her the sheet music for “Vestido rosa”, the song he composed at the very moment he met her and fell in love with her.
‘La nonna’ was, in the words of her grandson: “The wife of a bohemian. Behind everything there was an engine that was her ”. She was in charge of everything in the house “because silver could not last long in the head of an artist.”
The Stermieri family arrived in La Plata for those things of fate. The economy was getting worse in his native Italy. His love for music spoke to him in one ear and in the other, he listened to the resonance of the monetary difficulties that the war had left in the European country.
Luiggi and Rina had chosen to go to Australia, but the day they were going to buy the boat tickets, they received a letter from Luiggi’s sister, Dona Lara, who already lived in our city. In that letter, she advised him: “If you are thinking of leaving, come.”
Luiggi Stermieri and his family postcards already installed in our city: wife, children, grandchildren. And his accordion / book “Music of the soul”
It was what he needed to decide. She went looking for the tickets with a destination very different from the original, which they were going to arrive on the ship “Santa Fe”, one of those that made long and tiring trips from one continent to another, crossing the ocean.
The family boarded the vessel in the Port of Genoa. They only brought hope and he, his beloved accordion. “The journey lasted at least a month, in the third-class hold where those impoverished by the miseries of war travel,” described Jorge Stermieri, his grandson and the family’s first born in Argentina -his father was Italian and his mother is Spanish.
In those days, immigrants spoke of “going to make America.” There were “promised lands” and they could reach the United States, Brazil or Argentina, to name a few destinations. They chose the latter.
In fact, Luiggi disembarked with a “farmer’s passport” in October 1954, because it was the job that was sought in these lands. But he knew inside of him-and he fought for it-that his life was to dedicate himself to music: composer and tuner. “He came wanting to work on his own. His poverty (in Italy) had to do with the war but also because of his job ”.
“He didn’t want to give himself up. He wanted to live off of it, ”his grandson mentioned with emotion.
One of the first memories of Luiggi’s son, Franco, described what the economic situation was like in Italy and he was moved when he remembered when they got off the ship and were fed “a raw ham sandwich” in the port of Buenos Aires. In this context, with endless days surrounded by the sea and the hunger that punished the whole world, that mouthful was gold dust.
LANDING
The arrival in La Plata was made to wait a month. From Buenos Aires to the capital of the Province they arrived in “one of the first buses”. His sister was waiting for him to open the door to her house, where the family lived for a while until she was able to buy her little piece of land, one block away. Altos de San Lorenzo he had gained a neighbor and musician, but he was still early to know it.
They settled in 72 between 25 and 26. Their first job was at the Minoli factory -which years later became Indeco- but it did not last long there.
The year after arriving, in 1955, he was already working as a luthier. The first part of that dream was fulfilled.
His other son, Juan Carlos, had a carpentry shop in that 72-metre house that would later become an emblem of La Plata: the first to manufacture folding doors. Behind, Luiggi had set up a workshop where he worked with his beloved instruments. Jorge, by then, spent every afternoon with his grandfather, listening to his stories, teachings, accompanying him everywhere.
Thanks to his musical wisdom and to the fact that he had the gift of absolute pitch, he became known in La Plata and in the federal capital. Aníbal Troilo, Astor Piazzolla are just some of the protagonists of that golden age of tango who went to look for him: “They only let him play his instruments”. Luiggi and Jorge often took the ex-Roca train to go fix it directly to the homes or studios where these two greats recorded, among others, 2 by 4.
In addition, the grandson tells that he was the only one in those times to tune the organ of the La Plata Cathedral. “All his life he dedicated himself to writing, playing the piano or chromatic accordion or repairing instruments, especially the bandoneon and accordion. He started composing at the age of 12, ”explained Jorge, with the pride of a grandson.
Luiggi always remembered his homeland. But he returned only once, for two months, thanks to a gesture from Juan Carlos, another son: he bought her the house “although he would inherit it later” and gave him the money so that he could spend that time happily. “He never forgot about Italy even though he already considered himself very La Plata. He spent 46 years in the City. He always said that it was the land of his grandchildren, ”said Jorge.
It was Jorge who wrote the book “Música del Alma” in honor of his grandfather and who dreams of “seeing the story of nono captured on film”.
He lived half of his life in Carpi and the other half in La Plata. He died at his house in Altos de San Lorenzo, at the age of 93, surrounded by love, memories and achievements that he took with him, such as tuning instruments with perfect pitch, for few in music.
