This book owes its inception to the teachings of Dr. Seymour Bernstein: distinguished pianist, composer, author, lecturer, and master teacher. Dr. Bernstein is known and appreciated for the masterclasses in the art of the piano, which he conducts throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. I count myself fortunate to have been granted admission to a number of these classes in New York City.

I was impressed early on in these classes by the way in which Dr. Bernstein approached the practical knowledge that must be acquired and implemented in the performance of music on the piano. Even more impressive to me was Dr. Bernstein's ability to demonstrate the transformation that must be worked on musical sound by the art of musicians. For his treatment of this transformation was, as I understood it, philosophy in action. It was to resurrect the dream of Socrates that urged the practice and composition of music as an imperative of philosophy. And since Socrates regarded philosophy as “the greatest music,” he felt that by spending his life working on all aspects of music, he was also practicing philosophy in the highest degrees (Plato Phaedo 61A3–8).

The philosophical component of Dr. Bernstein's teachings made me think of music even as the ancient Greeks did: as something that tends to unity, like the course of human reason, while reaching for diversity, like the manifold forces of nature. The unity of reason organizes and sets limits to things musical, while the forces of human nature create things musical and set them free. These are the two principles that Dr. Bernstein emphasized in his teachings. According to him, they interpenetrate all musical thought, all musical creation, and all musical performances.