Of Richter, it is related that he sat all night long beside the open coffin of Boris Pasternak, playing Scriabin from memory on an upright piano, in the peculiar and intimate knowledge that the late poet had been taught the piano as a boy by the great composer and that, in 1930, Pasternak had eloped with the wife of Richter's teacher, Heinrich Neuhaus, who, ever after, obliged his Muscovite piano students to memorise his writings.

In such zig-zag connections (and in a sentence of Rosenian parody) we may glimpse the mission that a man or woman who sits upon a piano stool can fulfil in the embodiment and transmission of cultural values across genres and generations. The piano inhabits our living room, a reminder and reproach of creative limitations. The profession of philosopher is not incidental to playing the piano; it is inherent.

So who will bear that mission now that Charles Rosen is no more? Fear not, the vacuum will be filled. Daniel Barenboim, a pianist at heart, is an avid reader of arid tracts. Alfred Brendel writes and lectures on his view from the stool. Every French pianist is by national perception a philosopher manqué. Lang Lang has gone on an advanced reading course. None of these yet wears  both hats, but I know one who does.

The Merseyside melismatist Stephen Hough is widely read to an indecent degree. A teenaged candidate for priesthood, he has published his own translation of the Book of Psalms for long-haul flights, recorded an album of his compositions and presented an exhibition of his paintings. He blogs intermittently on art, dance, hats, faith and gay experience. He speaks in whole paragraphs. He plays — we are near-neighbours — far into the night. I don't expect Stephen to write The Post-Modern Style. Not his style at all. But having him around the corner is a constant reminder that the piano is there for no better reason than to make us think.