Seymour Bernstein & Garrick Ohlsson Teach the Same 16 Bars of Brahms 

What a privileged time we live in, where these great thoughts of great minds can be shared instantly to all corners of the globe:)

If you look closely at Garrick's hands, he's doing exactly what Seymour says to do, in terms of how he achieves legato and articulation. ! He just doesn't start with talking about that, the way Seymour does--he already does it as a matter of course. Not a movement wasted, and the technique comes organically from thinking and feeling the music out while learning it.

I love how Bernstein makes it so soft and tender, and Ohlsson makes it so moving and expressive. It's beautiful.

Seymour really helps you “see more” of the composer’s intentions.

I love listening to both of these guys! However, listening to Seymour is like attending a master class every time. His knowledge and insight and instinct are unmatched.

The content on this channel just keeps getting better and better. This video is not just for pianists but a must watch for every musician that cares about phrasing.

I love Bernstein's tempo. You'd have to be a really great musician to pull off that tempo

That a funny little man can have so much passion in his playing is truly amazing. Bernstein’s playing is stunning.

5:22 Garrick loves the use of the second inversion of the IV chord more than he wants to admit. He doesn't want learners to give too much value to the technical aspects, but the inversions in this piece really give it a special sound compared to the music from a few decades earlier.

Sir Bernstein really makes the music alive in our deepest part of heart.

I love your tempo Seymour!

Thank you so much. I just realized that my teachers never gave me this piece to play, although it is technically not difficult. I played some of Brahms's intermezzi, but never got to this one. I just sat down and played it, and it is indeed so terribly beautiful... 🥲 Looking back (from my 62 years of age) I can understand that some teachers would ‘save’ such a piece for the riper student, Well here I am. 👵

Seymoyrs natural sense of direction as it appears when he's playing, is unrivaled. He is playing like he knows why nothing else would come next, other than what's in the score. Truly like if he had composed it himself.

I had the pleasure of meeting Garrick recently after one of his concerts. Lovely man.

My God. Best video I’ve seen in the last few months. So valuable. 🙏🏻

YES MORE SEYMOUR AND BRAHMS

So wonderful! I would love to hear them discuss the rest of the piece.

Oh My god ! SO Fantastic. I;ve been studying it for two years. SO great! Thanks! Bravo~

What a coincidence! I am playing this piece this evening. Mr. Seymour has really helped me to understand the piece especially hairpins. They both shared most important aspects of making music. Anyways I will play according to my interpretation and feeling since there is no right answer. Another credit to Mr. Rosenbaum for this piece. Thanks tonebase!

I haven't even started to watch the video but I'm learning another intermezzo and have recently been feeling inadequate as a pianist because of my sound and composition issues but I'm so excited to understand Brahms better. Thank you for this help.

Immensely grateful for this video.

This is fantastic - two SUPERSTARS cutting it up!

Seymore manages to hold a particular mood throughout without onve letting it go slack. At that tempo,a remarkable achievment. Only Pogorelich plays it slower, but he lacks the throughline. Slow for the purpose of being different. Unsupported. I love Bernstein's playing of this!

I love listening to seymour teaching

Both great masters. Seymour is magic

Great editing, excellent content from two masters. Awesome job Tonebase.

Great idea of both speaking about the same piece! That is a marvelous video! Thank's a lot, Tonebase!

Love this discussion. I have been playing this piece since 1977, and I'm learning new things!

These are two wonderful presentations in a highly musical sense that compliment each-other. I feel delighted to be able to follow. I feel I really understand both and appreciate. There is no comparison between one, or the other, but both are delightful, emphasizng different aspects, but talking about the same.

Beautiful playing by masters. I find these kinds of slow teaching rather slow, but the joy the two find in the music is peering through their words. Reminds me that music education must be a great part of the joy of music

Thanks tonebase for this precious share

What amazing teachers!!! Thank you!!!

Thank you Tonebase. Absolutely one of my top favorite pieces of all time. I could listen to it over and over and never get tired of it. What an amazing interview of the 2 talented musicians sharing their thoughts and dissecting the music and techniques. Great work. Great video! Thank you for featuring this piece, one of the most beautiful and expressive pieces ever existed. ❤

Brilliantly explained

This is a piece that is much more satisfying to play for yourself than to listen to other people's playing. Having said that, I liked Bernstein's sincerity very much even though I thought the rit is too much. My all-time favourite recording is Heinrich Neuhaus'. But although Ohlsson encapsulated his tempo much more than Bernstein, I liked Bernstein's more. Isn't music just beautiful?!

i love listening to seymour

Seymour for the win!👏🏽👏🏽

Brilliant and inspirational! Thank you! 😊

Thanks amazing videos

Wonderful!

It's almost intimidating that Mr. Bernstein is 96 and sharp as a needle tip when he talks and conveys ideas about Brahms. I can only hope I'm as sharp when I'm at his age.

Thank you !

Thank you kindly🤍

garrick and seymour are quickly becoming my favourite pianists, maybe even humans!

Capital idea…more of this, please!

Wonderful analysis from two masters. This piece reminds me a little of Vincent Youman's 'Through The years'. I'm sure Broadway composers borrowed from the classics.

1:35, Major obvious difference in playing the first 8 bars is that Ohlsohn takes 21 secs to Bernsteins 29. Eight secs is 38% quicker which is really a lot - like playing a Symphony in 21 mins instead of 29. But they both sound good to me!

Very helpful. I had just played this piece and came across this video. The various dynamics applied to the leap to A helps. I’ve been doing it too much the same way.

Thanks!

Gold

great

I play by my feelings. Thanks for this video which proved me right❤

Appreciate interpretations by younger pianists like George Harliono as well

I do wish you would have a technician fix the blocking hammer strike mid range, Seymour. Fixable in 10 seconds.

What is the most beautiful piece of music youve heard this month, or hell even this year (you can name more then one)

What do we know about Garrick Ohlsson's chair?

I wonder if anyone knows what piano is Mr. Ohlsson's piano. The light in the video is too dim over the keyboard, I cannot see. It does not sound to me as typical Steinway piano , though it is beautiful sound, it sounds to me richer and more "round" than what I normally hear from a Steinway. (forgive my lack of words, English is not my first language). Is is perhaps a Boesendorfer? I am asking as I havent seen a lot of Boesendorfers here in the States over the years, so my ears are really curious now 🙂. Thank you Tonebase Piano for sharing this videos, wonderful as all your videos; though I no longer play, not in many years, I love to learn deeper aspects of the music I so much love.

anyone know the recording for that horrowitz mazurka garrick mentioned?

The kawai piano wins, hands down!!

Can someone tell me where to find the documents Seymour was referring too?

Not even a hairdresser and dealing with all these hairpins

fight fight fight ✊🏻

Question and Answer

i love life

I like Ohlsson's interpretation more.

The miking and piano was brighter on Bernstein

That was so informative and reassuring. I taught myself this piece a few years ago, and am preparing to play it in a concert in the autumn. I made a recording some time ago (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-lsEi71KwW40.html), but as usual after watching Seymour I feel that I need to rethink everything... and that's actually a really nice feeling! Thank you.

I much prefer Seymour Bernstein’s version 🎹🎶✨

Caviar.

Seymour Bernstein is economical in his technique. His hands do not leave the keyboard, but they glide as he repositions.

So....if you had to choose to study with one of these musicians who would you pick and why? I will answer my own question: Garrick Ohlsson's style or his method of communication does not seem so "surgical". This is art, not a heart transplant.

When you start playing a piece, the first thing you should take into account is the choice of the tempo, here 'Andante', walking not resting nor running. Personnally Seymour's tempo seems too slow to me and Garrick's too fast. Radu Lupu's version is still my favourite one.

I prefer Glenn Gould’s approach to these Brahms pieces. Not overly busy and thus more flowing. All of this Twisting and turning on each and every note becomes too syrupy very quickly.

I'm sorry, but I completely disagree with Bernstein -- with his tempo and with his persistent backing away from the downbeat in the first full bar and then the rolled downbeat in the second full bar and the time he takes in each case. And I completely agree with Ohlsson's far more straight-forward approach, which I find much more beautiful and consistent with what Brahms wrote. Tempo first: Brahms tells us "Andante teneramente". So this is a walking tempo in 3. Bernstein is much too slow. "Teneramente" to me is Brahms giving us an indication of the character of the piece and is not so much a tempo marking. It's still a walk in 3. As for backing away from the downbeats, Bernstein justifies this by talking about the difficulty of achieving legato on the piano because notes decay after being struck. He says they "disappear immediately", which is simply untrue. I think he meant "*begins* to disappear or decay immediately", which is the obvious truth. So he is trying to match the dynamic of each tone in the "phrase" c#-b-d to the decayed state of the previous tone, here talking about the soprano voice of the first four beats of the piece. But notice that Brahms wrote a slur over the first two notes, not the first three; he did not intend c#-b-d to be heard as one phrase, but rather the downbeat, the half-note d, is separate from the previous legato c#-b. Furthermore, the first 8 bar phrase is marked 'p', piano. It is then repeated, with important harmonic variation, but 'pp', pianissimo. If you play those downbeats as quietly and taking as much time as Bernstein does the first time, how can they be different, quieter, the second time, as Brahms requests of the whole 8 bar phrase? If you listen to great pianists, and we have Garrick Ohlsson here as an example, but listen further to Andras Schiff, Radu Lupu and Artur Rubinstein, you will hear nothing like what Bernstein advocates, either as far as tempo or dynamics.

Both of them play the F# - A arpeggiation differently. I play the way Garrick plays.

Brahms il primo uomo moderno

No offence but I don't like Brahms much. Not enough sustained melodies for my liking. I love Bernstein's inimitable and MAGNIFICENT Chopin Nocturne number 1 (on youtube - it sounds like Rachmaninoff himself or Hoffman or some such golden age pianist is playing the piece). My theory is that the only people who like Brahms have some personal romantic memory that link to it.

Seymour is 95 and much sharper than Joe Biden.

BERNSTEIN's pedaling is ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS muddy with left-overs of sonorities (in the new chord change) that absolutely DO NOT belong there. ...always ,always. and always is the playing as passionate-less as is the poor man's verbal speech, elocution and delivery.

Music is jot wherever is written, is the magic is been done with it