Lucas
Versantvoort / 31 Oct 2015
Having been a
fan of classical music for about ten years now, I must confess I'd never heard
of Seymour Bernstein. What's worse is that this was a man being touted as
someone who 'needed no introduction'. Good thing then Ethan Hawke created the
very appropriately titled Seymour: An Introduction which goes beyond music and
gives a glimpse of an entire ethos and lifestyle.
We see
Bernstein sitting at the piano in his cozy little apartment, practicing (what I
think is) a Scarlatti piece and trying to get a certain phrase just right. From
here on out, the documentary alternates between several types of scenes:
masterclasses, interviews, casual conversations, etc. We see how his
masterclasses help his students with phrasing and so on. The documentary takes
on a hypnotic quality--aided by the immense amount of Schubert--as Bernstein
explains his views on music, life and everything in between.
My first
experience with classical music was Milos Forman's Amadeus which blew me away,
because it wasn't just about music, but the people behind the music, their
passions and obsessions. Seymour: An Introduction works in similar ways. Like
Salieri, Seymour sees music as something more than just sound waves entering
our ears. Music can be transcendent. It can be a force that unites people (as
seen when Seymour reminisces about his wartime concerts). Ethan Hawke himself
only appears about three times, making sure to not make the documentary about
him, and you can feel he took great pains to paint Seymour in a light that
adequately reflects the man's way of life.
I did feel,
however, that the documentary could have bothered to spend more time on a few
select topics. Take the notion of interpretation, for example. Seymour says that
Glenn Gould, while a genius, let his eccentricity seep into his interpretations
too much. When Gould plays Bach, Seymour only hears Gould. However, in an
earlier masterclass, Seymour himself suggested that a slight alteration in
interpretation be made, because we 'feel' that it must be played in a certain
way and so on. I'm not saying Seymour is a hypocrite. Far from it. What I am
saying is that the documentary implicitly raises questions of interpretation:
what makes a good interpretation and when does an interpretation deviate 'just
too much' from the source material? When does a unique interpretation go from
'inspired' to 'eccentric'? Another example is when Seymour explains he quit
performing due to stress. A close friend then raises the question of whether or
not a performer has a certain responsibility to his talent, art and audience
despite any amount of stress. Yet, the documentary never shows Seymour giving a
direct answer to this question (though we can guess he feels he's accepted this
responsibility in the way he passes on his craft to his pupils). I get that the
focus is ultimately on Seymour, but it still bothered me that these kinds of
interesting topics were being addressed yet sometimes not really dealt with.
All in all
though, the portrait it manages to paint of a man and his entire lifestyle in
under ninety minutes leaves a lasting impression. Any niggling complaints about
the documentary's reluctance to discuss certain musical topics in-depth are
superseded by the romantic, gentle way Hawke portrays Bernstein.
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