ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: Some listeners may also remember Greenhouse from a 2008 portrait on this program. Radio Diaries' producer Joe Richman brought us that story, and he has this remembrance.</s>JOE RICHMAN: Greenhouse had a small mustache and a big sense of humor. When I interviewed him a few years ago, he told me he didn't teach students to play the cello. He taught them how to make music.</s>JOE RICHMAN: It's a special talent, which draws the listener close to the performer, this bond, great bond between performer and listener. If you feel it on your skin, you know that they're going to feel it the same way. I can't tell you why...</s>JOE RICHMAN: That is different from...</s>JOE RICHMAN: From that. But you hear a difference, don't you? Listen again. The opening, it can be played...</s>JOE RICHMAN: That's one way of playing it, but here...</s>JOE RICHMAN: Over the past few years, Bernard Greenhouse continued to teach and even occasionally perform. His eyesight was failing, so he couldn't read music. He had to rely on his memory. But Greenhouse never considered retiring.</s>JOE RICHMAN: I don't play "The Flight of the Bumblebee." I don't look for progress. I look for containing from year to year. That's why I practice every day. I fight against the closure of my ability. And I'm not going to let it happen.</s>JOE RICHMAN: Three weeks ago, at the age of 95, Greenhouse stopped playing his cello. After a lifetime of practicing every day, he just could no longer physically make a sound on the instrument.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: The Countess of Stanlein, a 300 year-old Stradivarius cello. That cello, he said, was his voice.</s>JOE RICHMAN: For NPR, I'm Joe Richman.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, Host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
Renowned cellist Bernard Greenhouse died last week at 95. Greenhouse spent almost his entire life playing and teaching the cello. He was perhaps best known as a founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio.