As mouth-watering prospects go, this one was right up there: a former Leeds Piano Competition prizewinner, long since risen to international renown, headlining for Harrogate with Beethoven and Schubert.

Not just any Beethoven. This was to be the 33 Variations On A Waltz By Diabelli, one of the Everests of the repertoire, known in the business simply as “the Diabelli’, no further explanation required, except perhaps a widening of the eyes. Offered alongside a Schubert sonata, it was irresistible.

In truth, the Schubert – the G major sonata D.894, written in 1826 – started less than propitiously, the opening movement aggressive, rough at the edges. A proper delicacy only arrived with the Minuet, at which point Schiff was finally “in the zone”. The finale danced.

Anton Diabelli could hardly have dreamed, when in 1819 he invited variations on his banal waltz from all composers worthy of the name, that Beethoven would respond with such a monumental work, nearly an hour long.

Schiff despatched the theme with abandon, quite without the daintiness it suggests. It was a presage: he was in fiery form.

It was not long before he freed us froam admiring his technical prowess, so that the composer’s own mastery was our only consideration.

It was not just Beethoven’s contrasts of register and dynamic, key and counterpoint: we were transported into an orchestral sphere where instruments were miraculously conjured too.

The big fugue before the close was muscular yet transparent, the final bars ethereal.

Martin Dreyer