Seymour: An Introduction (2015)

Seymour Bernstein April 24, 1927-- April 30, 2026

About five years ago, my piano teacher recommended Seymour Bernstein's book, "With Your Own Two Hands" to her adult students. I read and reviewed the book. Then, just last week, my current piano teacher mentioned the book to me as something I could learn from. It is impossible to absorb fully all Bernstein's book has to teach at a single reading; and my teacher's suggestion reminded me about how much I enjoyed the book. He also mentioned to me this film, "Seymour: an Introduction" directed by Ethan Hawke which played in a theater showing independent film last year, but which I didn't have the opportunity to see. (My teacher hasn't seen it yet either.) I took the opportunity to watch it.

One of the most endearing things about "With Your Own Two Hands" was Bernstein's feeling for serious amateur musicians. He wrote:

"Stimulated at the mere thought of turning a musical phrase with control and artistry, they approach their practicing with a religious fervor and a childlike enthusiasm born of an unconditional love. No one forces them to practice; they are drawn to it. Their lives, they admit unashamedly, would be meaningless without music. Such people, though they may be highly accomplished in their chosen fields, are in truth among the most devoted servants of music. It is they who dignify the status of amateurism." (p.283)

Much of Hawke's documentary can be read as an expansion of Bernstein's thoughts about amateur musicians. In the film, Bernstein again praises amateurs for their pursuit of music out of love rather than from careerism. More importantly, Bernstein speaks at length about the need to approach music whole heartedly from love and to emphasize the emotions in learning a work of music over the intellect and over considerations of formal structure, important as they may be. Bernstein describes how giving oneself to music is one way to committing oneself to a meaningful life.

Bernstein's own long life, (he is in his mid-80s), shows his own growing sense of an emotional commitment to music. As shown in the film, Bernstein had a successful concert career until the age of 50 and then suddenly gave it up due to a combination of nervousness over performing in public and a dislike of the commercial aspects of professional music. Bernstein, who has lived in the same New York City apartment for over 50 years, devoted himself to teaching, writing and composition. Without the large following of a concert pianist, Bernstein has instilled a love of music in his students and in the many people with whom he has come in contact more than on the stage. Hawke asks Bernstein several times during the film whether he might have given up too much in leaving the concert stage and the ability to communicate music to a large audience. Bernstein's reply is that he has passed music along through his students and through his own devotion to the art.

The film includes beautiful music by Schubert, Beethoven, Scarlatti, Schumann, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, among others, performed both by Bernstein and by students. The film also cuts away to musicians as different as the Beatles and Mahalia Jackson to stress the emotive, or what Bernstein calls at one point the "ecstatic", mystical quality of music and its ability to move the heart. He states that the greatest gift a music teacher can give a student is a sense of feeling and emotion in music and life, a quality which is all---too---rare.

I watched this film as a spur to my own efforts and to prepare for a piano festival I am attending this summer. It is a moving film about a great teacher and pianist. It reinforced my love of music and the piano.