Concert pianist Silas Berlin returned to his hometown last week, playing a recital at the West Tisbury Library that drew more than 40 fans, friends and fellow musicians.

Now living in Seattle, Mr. Berlin is the 25-year-old son of versatile Island pianist Jeremy Berlin, one of many in the audience who smiled as they listened to the young performer whose musical development they have been following for years.

The library’s community room resonated with the sound of the 18th century as Mr. Berlin played — from memory — Beethoven’s Sonata No. 11 in B Flat Major and three Chopin waltzes.

Written in 1800, the Beethoven piece is part of the composer’s 32-sonata cycle, which Mr. Berlin told the audience he first discovered while attending the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and taking piano lessons at Smith College.

Proud father Jeremy Berlin applauds his son with the rest of the audience.

Mark Alan Lovewell

Proud father Jeremy Berlin applauds his son with the rest of the audience.

Mark Alan Lovewell

“At the time, there was a fellow there who was doing what the few are fortunate enough to do, called playing the Beethoven cycle,” recalled Mr. Berlin, who said he attended the monthly recitals until he had heard all 32.

“It’s amazing. It’s like an epic autobiography,” he said, adding that a key theme emerged as he listened to the cycle. “There was always this idea of moving forward and looking forward, forward motion toward the next one and the next thing. I think that was vitally important to Beethoven and to his music, the idea of moving forward, constant, constant motion.”

“I think that’s important to live by,” Mr. Berlin continued. “I certainly live by it, moving forward at all costs — but in the moments of reflection and quietness that occur in the music and in our lives, and in Beethoven’s music in particular, it’s those moments that are the backbone of pushing forward.”

It’s tempting, from these insights, to imagine Mr. Berlin in his childhood as a Vineyard version of Schroeder, the Beethoven-obsessed, toy-piano-playing pal of Charlie Brown in the Peanuts comics. But his turn toward classical music began relatively late, both Silas and his father Jeremy told the Gazette after Thursday’s recital.

Although raised by the Vineyard’s most in-demand keyboardist, who can improvise and supercharge rhythm sections in jazz, blues and soul, Silas Berlin discovered his own direction in college after hearing Ravel, Chopin and, of course, Beethoven.

Silas Berlin now lives in Seattle.

Mark Alan Lovewell

Silas Berlin now lives in Seattle.

Mark Alan Lovewell

Transferring to Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, Silas earned his bachelor’s degree in music and now teaches and performs in the Seattle area.

While a classical career might seem a departure from his father’s world of popular and social musics, his paternal grandparents were both active classical musicians — a pianist and a clarinetist, Jeremy Berlin said.

“He’s turning into my mother,” Jeremy Berlin said, adding that he wished his late parents could see their grandson today. “He found his way back to the classics.”