This final release in the Naxos reissue of the complete Beethoven Sonata Society recordings made during the 1930s by Artur Schnabel, features the monumental Diabelli Variations, a work so daunting that even by the twentieth century few pianists ventured to play it in public. Almost twenty years after the recording first appeared, Schnabel’s biographer, César Saerchinger, wrote of the great pianist’s enormous contribution to the Beethoven discography: ‘He rejected out of hand the contention that recordings must be made within a certain limited range of dynamics, and he decided that this was one of the main reasons for the smooth but un-plastic, impersonal recordings of performances by artists who certainly could play better than they sounded on records, and for the pale and partial reflections of great masterpieces that already crowded the market.’ In today’s even more saturated market Schnabel’s vibrant performances remain essential documents in the genealogy of Beethoven interpretation.