Between the obligation to promote my radio shows every Friday and Saturday, then last week falling ill as I teetered into the weekend, I just couldn’t pull it together to acknowledge the passing of Seymour Bernstein.

Born and raised in Newark, NJ (and no relation to Leonard), Bernstein basically taught piano for 80+ years, from the time his own teacher, Clara Husserl, herself a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky – who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with Beethoven – delegated the supervision of some of her more gifted, younger pupils to him when he was only 15.

Bernstein also studied with Alexander Brailowsky, Clifford Curzon, and Jan Gorbaty, legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, and master of all trades George Enescu. That is quite the gallery of mentors!

Bernstein was the soloist in the world premiere of Heitor Villa-Lobos’ Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1969. Even at the height of his career as a performer, he taught, conducting master classes in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

He abandoned the concert stage at the age of 50, opting instead for the quieter satisfactions of teaching and composing. He intimated to no one that his final concert, in 1977, would be his swan song.

His Achilles’ heel was debilitating stage fright. It drove him to early retirement, and later in life, when he was persuaded to go before the cameras for a documentary about him, he blacked out.

He long maintained a private studio in New York City, where he continued to teach practically to the time of his death. His books include “With Your Own Two Hands: Self-Discovery Through Music,” “20 Lessons in Keyboard Choreography,” “Monsters and Angels: Surviving a Career in Music,” and “Chopin: Interpreting His Notational Symbols.”

Warm and funny, dry, opinionated, and always full of insight, Bernstein was a larger-than-life character whose philosophy of musicmaking was always rooted in the heart. He could lull you with that grandfatherly exterior, but watch out! He was as sharp as C-sharp major.

In 2015, that documentary was released. “Seymour: An Introduction” was directed by Princeton’s Ethan Hawke – and if you’re a J.D. Salinger fan, you’ll doubly appreciate the title. The film has a 100-percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. You can watch the trailer here.

A Bernstein interview at the age of 90 on “Living the Classical Life”

There are also hours of fascinating videos on the YouTube channel “tonebase PIANO.” In this one, Bernstein dismantles Glenn Gould’s Mozart.

Bernstein plays Brahms

At 19, playing Liszt’s “Mephisto Waltz No. 1”

Bernstein died on April 30. At the time of his death, he was 99 years old.

R.I.P.