It's not a cake piece to play, no. The problems begin when you've actually learned all the notes. You have to create a sense of continuity between the variations while giving a musical performance as well. You only get one chance to do each variation (no repeats) and everyone's got an opinion on how best to put the individual variations together as a coherant whole. I played this in a masterclass for a couple well-known pianists and they told me that the tempo must remain constant throughout the set. I don't think that is a functional solution to the coherance problem. I think that rather there are sub-sets of variations throughout the set, and these sub-sets should be played in a tempo-consistant manner -- but not the entire set of variations. I got tired of listening to conflicting answers from everyone I talked to about this, so for the recital I played it how I thought it should be played. Listen to which variations I play at the same tempo (the first few variations are a good example) and you will see what I mean.
Josh
Topic: Recital Recording - Beethoven 32 Variations in C Minor