In the half century that has passed since his death, Artur Schnabel’s reputation as the great scholar-pianist of the early twentieth century has changed remarkably little. He had, for many years, refused to record, believing, among other things, that the technology was simply inadequate, but at the age of fifty he began the task of committing to disc for HMV all of Beethoven’s solo piano music, under the Beethoven Sonata Society (BSS) banner. In his insistence on recording all thirty-two Sonatas, Schnabel left a statement that influenced how we understand and appreciate many of Beethoven’s works. The sonatas on the current disc were among the first to be recorded and Sonata No. 32 was among the closest to the pianist’s heart. Writing in High Fidelity in 1970, Harris Goldsmith declared that Schnabel had ‘found the elusive balance between classicism and Romanticism, between ripe tonal expansiveness and ascetic economy.’