Anton Diabelli (editor)

Austrian composer, pianist–guitarist, and one of Vienna’s most influential early-19th-century music publishers. After moving to Vienna, he co-founded Cappi & Diabelli in 1818 and, from 1824, led his own house Diabelli & Co., which championed composers such as Schubert and shaped Biedermeier musical taste.  In 1819 he circulated his newly written C-major waltz and invited dozens of composers to contribute a single variation—an initiative issued under the patriotic title Vaterländischer Künstlerverein.  Beethoven declined the collaborative premise but produced 33 Variations (Op. 120); Diabelli published these separately as Vol. I (1823) and the remaining 50 variations by 50 composers—including the eleven-year-old Liszt— as Vol. II (1824), with a coda by Carl Czerny.