Harvey Shapiro: Evening Star (Tannhäuser) LIVE!

Cellist Harvey Shapiro (June 22, 1911 - October 25, 2007) in a live radio performance of "Evening Star" from Tannhäuser, by Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 - February 13, 1883). Harvey Shapiro was a student of Willem Willeke (1879 -- 1950), the major 'cello teacher at the Institute of Musical Art New York, which merged with the Juilliard School in 1926. Violinist Joachim took the young Willeke to meet Brahms, and the three of them played the composer's chamber music. Willeke studied the Brahms 'cello works with the composer, played with numerous other major composers of the latter 19th Century, including Grieg and Richard Strauss and was the dedicatee of their Sonatas for Violoncello and Piano. A huge chamber music devotee he was also a member of the famed Kneisel Quartet. Willeke's vast heritage was transplanted to his student Harvey Shapiro, who from age 60 to the end of his life at age 96 became one of the most important teachers at the Juilliard School in New York. During his younger years Shapiro was a member of the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini and played principal 'cello in that orchestra for several years. Along with his colleagues from the NBC, violinists Oscar Shumsky and Josef Gingold, and violist William Primrose, they formed the Primrose Quartet, acknowledged as one of the finest quartets of the 20th Century. Read more about 'cellist/teacher Harvey Shapiro here: http://www.jameskreger.com/article7.htm