Seymour Bernstein is probably the most talented classical pianist alive today, yet very few people have ever heard of him. He was at dinner party a couple of years ago and seated next to the actor Ethan Hawke who was immediately impressed that this octogenarian musician seemed to understand all his anxieties and self-doubts much more than his peers. The two formed a very close friendship out of which came this documentary on Bernstein directed by Hawke who wanted to share his remarkable find with the world.It’s very easy to see why the movie star was so smitten with this genial genius who has such a measured and reasoned approach to life. He started wanting to play the piano aged just 5 years old even though his un-musical family didn’t even posses one. It was the beginning of a passion that has totally ruled his life through all its ups and downs, although it is initially hard to believe there could possible have been many of the later.
Hawke films Bernstein giving masterclasses in NY (he has lived in the same small one room apartment on the Upper West Side for the past 57 years) as he found his true calling as a teacher. He is precise and exact sharing his passion with a self-effacing humor that tempers the real seriousness he takes with every aspect of the music.
When he had initially started out as very young concert pianist many years ago, he received unprecedented rave reviews from the notoriously ungenerous New York Times critics. This however was never enough for him to overcome his nerves of performing, and so without warning he gave his last public performance 35 years ago. That is until now as Hawke has persuaded him to make this one recital which is the climax of the movie.
As Bernstein discusses his theories with several of his ex-pupils who have gone on to achieve their own success, but not always performing and one of them was Michael Kimmelman a writer with the NY Times. Bernstein professes that he believes that having a major career in music is not a healthy thing, and agrees with Hawke that there is a very marked connection between having such a sheer talent and being a real monster too. Or just becoming an uncontrollable neurotic like the genius Glenn Gould.
When Bernstein is pushed at one point to agree that if you are that talented, then you do indeed have some sort of responsibility to share this with the public, he neatly side steps that with the assertion that he pours his own talent into others via his teaching which also gives him a sense of achievement. It is actually easy to see that this man who places such great store on his solitude is in fact remarkable generous and sociable with anyone who shows the merest hint of sharing his passion for making the music. It is he that has now helped Hawke overcome some of his own demons regarding performance nerves.As much as Bernstein is on camera we still learn very little of any his life outside of music other than some years ago he was pursued by an overly keen wealthy patron, but he exudes an air of contented happiness. Evidence by the fact that one of his favorite expressions for describing things was calling them ‘impossibly beautiful’.
That actually is an apt way of summing up his own playing at the Recital that ends this touching documentary on this charming and extremely affable old gent. He then sighs when he says ‘I never dreamt that with my own two hands I could touch the skies.’
