A quick lesson from the subject of Seymour: An Introduction

Classical pianist, composer and teacher Seymour Bernstein, 88, has inspired hundreds to make classical music their life and has introduced countless people to the work of old masters through his concerts in unusual venues (including war zones) and on his YouTube channel.

And now, thanks to four-time Oscar nominee and first-time documentary director Ethan Hawke, he’s also a movie star.

Hawke’s Seymour: An Introduction (which opens here Friday) follows Bernstein as he mentors students, explains his philosophy, and prepares for his first solo concert in decades. It also features former and current pupils as they discuss the impact he has had on them, even if they never played grand concert halls. The Pitch called Bernstein in New York to ask him about the movie.

The Pitch: Seymour: An Introduction suggests that being a performer requires a completely different skill set from being a teacher.

Bernstein: I’m not sure that’s absolutely true. Not all performers make good teachers. Some of us don’t even want to teach, so the ability to teach seems to be a separate ability. I think you have to want to identify with other people and help them.

I realized very late in life that the reason that I love to teach is because I want to help my pupils feel good about themselves. If I can contribute to doing that, then it’s a privilege.

Some of the most interesting moments in the movie happen when you’re talking with New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman, a former student of yours. What’s your connection like?

I taught Michael when he was 5 years old, and I’m still teaching him. He’s approaching 60. You get to know a person intimately, especially when you teach them music. Music is a language of feeling, so you deal very deeply into the emotional world of your pupils.

Do you think he wound up a better architecture critic because of the way you coached him as a pianist?

Definitely, no question about it. Michael Kimmelman, he plays like a professional. You would think that because he’s not a professional musician that he does not play as well as a professional, but he does. He’s one of the most formidable pianists I know.

Studying music develops every part of you because it requires an emotional, intellectual and physical involvement, mainly everything that constitutes you. So when Michael develops all of his being, it tends to affect his work as a reporter and everything else that he does in life.

In the film, you say that Beethoven “sublimated the female” in his work. What do you mean by that?

I said that Beethoven sublimated “the feminine” in him. What I meant by that is, people have both the masculine and the feminine in them, and Beethoven sublimated it, so that when he played the “Moonlight Sonata” to his colleagues and pupils, they were all crying. He interpreted that as a feminine response, and he said, “Men don’t cry.” That signified that he sublimated or refused to acknowledge the tenderness within people.

Do you think that men don’t feel comfortable with tenderness?

I think that they do. If they want to cry, they rule it out as a possibility. They think that it represents something feminine or perhaps something weak. In America, we have a very strange society. In America, when men perform in public, they usually don’t get flowers. But whenever I performed in Asia, the stage was filled like a botanical garden.

Watching the scenes when you recount your years of performing professionally, I wondered if performing on a regular basis got to be a lonely life.

I was never lonely. I’ve always been teaching, since I was 15. There’s nothing lonely about being with the music that was created by the greatest figures that ever walked the face of the earth.

Do you think you have a skill set that other performers might not have in getting outsiders to like classical music?

I think that I do. I think that they recognize that what I’m conveying to them is that I’m serving my art in a humble way and playing by placing my art above myself. I think that they sense that.

When describing your early life in the film, you mention that you didn’t have even a record player, much less a piano, when you were a small child. Do you think being denied music made you want it more later?

It’s possible that it’s true. I was never taken to a concert till I was 12 years old. I think, as a matter of fact, I benefited from that because I created my own world.

What was your own world like?

Well, it was sublime, and music is the most sublime of the arts. So what better world could I have created?