Submitted by The Rev. Dr. Michael Tessman, Sep 26, 2007 15:34

I met Albert in 1971 at Ralph Kirkpatrick's Thimble Island home while I was a graduate student at Yale. In the years that followed, through times when we were in and out of regular contact, Albert mentored me variously by the high artistic, aesthetic and spiritual example he set. Notably, although grieving the loss of direction by the church that formed his musical sensibilities in his youth, he encouraged me in the mystical ways and means of the saints ("sinners who know better!") and never hesitated (often in his favorite Frick gallery) to draw profound connections between the delights of Fragonard and the gravitas of El Greco's St. Jerome. I shall always remember his dinner party introductions to Alice Tully, Dame Janet Baker, and a host of other musical notables. He will be sorely missed but joyously remembered.

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