As my month of recitals is about to begin, one connection between the works on the program which I didn’t write about has been on my mind: both the Schubert and the Kurtág were introduced to me by Alan Marks.

Alan and my mother were frequent recital partners until his untimely death in 1995. He lived in Berlin, so I didn’t see that much of him; the memories I do have of him are of an uncommonly warm and inquisitive musician — his interests (and talents) ranged from the most intimate corners of the chamber music literature, to the most virtuosic works of Liszt, to the thorniest new music, with stopovers for musical theater and curiosities. (A performance of Schubert’s Winterreise  — without a singer! – springs to mind.)

I remember well the arrival in the mail of a selection of the Játékok, with as many pages of instructions as notes. I was probably twelve at the time, and wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them (although I do recall being instantly delighted to know there was a piece of music entitled “Phone Numbers of our Loved Ones”), but it marked my first acquaintance with music which I find more and more compelling by the day, and I’m sure that the energy of Alan’s advocacy for the music was what set me on that path.

Alan’s greatest musical love, though, was Schubert, and not long before he died, he performed a cycle of the 11 completed sonatas — and the unfinished C Major — in Berlin. These wonderful performances were released, virtually unedited, as recordings, and they marked my first exposure to nearly all the sonatas. (When I think of how taken I was with the C Major even then, I can’t understand why it’s taken me 15 years to get around to playing it.)

Music is a very powerful thing, of course, and one of its greatest and most mysterious powers is to bring back people who are sadly in our past. I am unable to play Schubert and Kurtág without them evoking memories of Alan; while it was a great piece of luck to be introduced to them by him, I am equally lucky that they have kept him so vividly in my memory.