Anton Diabelli

Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli (5 September 1781 – 8 April 1858) was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer.

Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.

Diabelli was trained to enter the priesthood and in 1800 joined the monastery at Raitenhaslach, Bavaria.

In 1803 Diabelli moved to Vienna and began teaching piano and guitar and found work as a proofreader for a music publisher.

The firm soon established a reputation in more serious music circles by championing the works of Franz Schubert.

Diabelli recognized the composer's potential and became the first to publish Schubert's work with "Erlkönig" in 1821.

Diabelli's publishing house expanded throughout his life, before he retired in 1851, leaving it under the control of Carl Anton Spina.

Fifty-one composers responded with pieces, including Beethoven, Schubert, Archduke Rudolph of Austria, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart (jun.

), Moritz, Prince of Dietrichstein, Heinrich Eduard Josef Baron von Lannoy, Ignaz Franz Baron von Mosel, Carl Czerny, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Simon Sechter, and the eight-year-old Franz Liszt (although it seems Liszt was not invited personally, but his teacher Czerny arranged for him to be involved).