Born and raised in Newark, NJ, Seymour Bernstein has basically been teaching piano for 80 years, ever since his own teacher, Clara Husserl – herself a pupil of Theodor Leschetizky – delegated the supervision of some of her more gifted younger pupils to him when he was 15. Today, Bernstein continues to teach and enlighten, with 95 years of accumulated wit and wisdom.
Also contributing to his own education were celebrated pianists Alexander Brailowsky, Clifford Curzon, and Jan Gorbaty, legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, and master of all trades George Enescu.
As a soloist, Bernstein gave 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.
Today, he maintains a private studio in New York City and is an adjunct professor at New York University. 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 is a larger-than-life character whose philosophy of musicmaking is always rooted in the heart. Don’t let that grandfatherly exterior lull you. Bernstein remains as sharp as C-sharp major.
In 2015, a documentary was released, “Seymour: An Introduction,” directed by Princeton’s Ethan Hawke. (If you’re a 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”
Happy 95th birthday, Seymour Bernstein!