Charles died of cancer Dec. 9, 2012, in New York, his hometown. He was 85.
Charles was a world-renowned classical pianist, as well as a prolific scholar, author, and lecturer on subjects ranging from musical history and music performance to French and English literature. He held professorships and lectureships at universities from Harvard to the University of Chicago. He authored award-winning scholarly books and numerous articles on music history, but he always considered himself above all a pianist. He was famous for the distinctive elegance of many of his recordings, including Beethoven’s last six sonatas and Diabelli Variations, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, and works by Chopin, Schoenberg, and Elliott Carter.
Charles was already an accomplished pianist when he entered Princeton from the Horace Mann School. (His neighbors in Witherspoon remember kibitzing about his daily practicing.) By 1951 he had earned three Princeton degrees, including a Ph.D. in modern languages and literature. That same year he made his piano recital debut at Town Hall in New York, had his first recording (of De-bussy études) issued, and then was off to Paris as a Fulbright scholar in literature.
In 2012, Charles was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama. He left no immediate survivors.