Interpretive Questions in the "Diabelli" Variations

If there were music to satisfy Schnabel's dictum that it should be "greater than any performance of it could possibly be," Beethoven's "Diabelli" Variations, op.120, would surely qualify. Their interpretive possibilities, determined by a performer's creative temperament and historical-cultural frame of reference, are practically inexhaustible. Drawing on the recorded performance tradition, I would like to characterize and evaluate some of the solutions to the most complex questions of interpretation confronting a pianist in this work.