The distinguished Boston-area composer, a deft practitioner of mid-century neoclassical style, has died at the age of ninety-three. He was the last living representative of the Copland generation, that remarkable phalanx of American composers who came to the fore in the thirties and forties. While others went in for brawny populist gestures, Shapero was always elegant and restrained, a faithful yet distinctive devotee of Stravinsky in his Symphony in C phase. Shapero's Symphony for Classical Orchestra, from 1947, is a masterpiece of its time and place — a "marvel," Leonard Bernstein once called it, in a letter to Koussevitzky. It deserves to be heard more often, or, indeed, heard at all. Tony Tommasini argued for its revival in 1999, but I'm unaware of any recent performances. I once had dinner with Shapero and his wife, the artist Esther Geller Shapero. For a composer of such exquisite habits, he was surprisingly boisterous in person. My condolences to Esther, to whom Harold was married for nearly seventy years.
More: Lisa Hirsch, in a lovely remembrance, recalls studying under Shapero at Brandeis. There are obituaries from Jeremy Eichler and Tony Tommasini.
