Schnabel moved to Berlin in 1898. He started to be famous from concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and from playing chamber music. He liked playing chamber music and he played it for all his life. Some of the famous musicians he played chamber music with were Carl Flesch, Joseph Szigeti and Bronislaw Huberman (violin), Paul Hindemith (viola), and Pablo Casals, Gregor Piatigorsky and Pierre Fournier (cello). He also played piano for the contralto singer Therese Behr (1876-1959). In 1905 he married her. They had two sons. Karl Ulrich Schnabel (1909-2001) was a pianist and Stefan Schnabel (1912-99) was an actor.