Seymour Bernstein: a discovery

A couple of months ago, in trying to glean some advice from the internet about how to play certain piano pieces, I came across a book called With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music, written by a pianist named Seymour Bernstein, who is a well-known piano teacher living in New York.  Although the title sounded a little corny, I bought the book anyway, through Amazon Marketplace--a used hardback from a private library collection for about $30.  I devoured the book in a few days, while marking, it seemed, almost every page with little purple stickers, meaning to come back to try to digest some of the passages later.  

A couple of months passed, and out of the blue I read somewhere about a recent documentary made by Ethan Hawke, called "Seymour: An Introduction".  I finally put the two together and discovered that along with many other people I had just been introduced to a great pianist and a great piano teacher.  I missed the film when it was screened at IU Cinema, and have not been able to stream it on-line (iTunes won't have it available until January 2016).  But after watching the many video clips on YouTube of his piano playing and the Q & A sessions given by him and Ethan Hawke about the film, I feel like saying that we've just been introduced to a living legend and a national treasure.  (He was born in 1927.)  On one of the videos Seymour recalled having met an old Viennese lady when he was in his 20s, at a retirement home in New Jersey where he once played some pieces by Brahms, and the lady telling him that he played better than Brahms himself.  She said she heard Brahms play when he came over to Hanover to play at Clara Schumann's funeral!  Now who, if not a living legend, could boast of a connection, though tenuous, like that in this day and age! 

One of the things that struck me about his book and his many recorded conversations is how rare and precious a good mentor and pupil relationship is.  Encountering a truly inspiring mentor in one's life, in whatever pursuit one is engaged in, is a gift of the gods.  The true mentor opens your eyes to something, gives you a momentary glimpse into a world rich and with unfathomable depth, and shows you clues about how to get there. Seymour Bernstein in this sense becomes a mentor to all those in whom his books and recordings strike a receptive cord.  My discovery of Bernstein through a random internet search was pure serendipity, like Ethan Hawke's meeting Bernstein at dinner at a friend's house, which led to his documentary, an unexpected find of a treasure trove.  

With the release of this film, his 1981 book is now selling for about $100 used and $350 to $680, like-new.  That was something I didn't expect when I purchased the book!

Here are some links to reviews about this documentary.  If it shows in your neighborhood, don't miss it.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/a-portrait-of-the-artist-as-an-older-man

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/20/394270834/seymour-a-loving-portrait-of-an-acclaimed-classical-pianist

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/13/movies/review-seymour-an-introduction-is-a-lesson-in-perseverance.html?_r=1