(b Mattsee, 6 Sept 1781; d Vienna, 7 April 1858). Austrian music publisher. With Pietro Cappi as business manager, he established the firm Cappi & Diabelli in Vienna in December 1818, specializing in fashionable operatic and dance music. His shrewd idea in 1819 of sending a simple waltz theme to every notable Austrian composer, asking them to send him a variation apiece, gained notice: it resulted in the Vaterländischer Künstlerverein (1824), a set of some 50 variations, and also Beethoven's monumental Diabelli Variations op.120. Diabelli's reputation also rests on his championship of Schubert, whose first (1821) and principal publisher he became. The firm was highly productive as Anton Diabelli & Cie (1824-51) and as C.A. Spina (1852-72), when it published works by Johann Strauss the younger.
Diabelli, Antonio (äntô'nyō dēäbĕl'lē), 1781-1858, Austrian music publisher. He published works by Beethoven and Schubert and composed the waltz theme of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations.
Anton Diabelli, a competent and very productive composer of attractive music, is best known as the author of a musical idea from which another composer made a masterpiece.
He was a choir boy in Salzburg Cathedral and is reputed to have had lessons with Michael Haydn there. Before he was 20 he wrote notable compositions, including six masses. In 1800 he joined the monastery at Raitenhaslach, Bavaria. There he might have remained, but Bavaria closed all its monasteries in 1803. He went to Vienna, where he taught piano and guitar, made arrangements, and continued to compose. He got work proofreading for a music publishing firm, which gave him knowledge of the process and business of publishing music, and continued to compose; among his works is the comic opera Adam in der Klemme (1809). In 1817 he started in business for himself, partnering the following year with a dealer named Pietro Cappi to create the firm of Cappi & Diabelli.
The partners were astute in their choices of music. Primarily, they specialized in popular music for home music making, including opera tune arrangements, dance music, collections for guitar or piano, and their most popular series, 429 volumes of the Latest Popular Comic Theater Songs.
In a masterly idea for promotion, Diabelli sent a waltz theme he had written to every important Austrian composer, inviting them to write variations on it for inclusion in a "patriotic anthology." By 1824, 50 composers had responded, and Carl Czerny wrote a coda for the set. The collection included the first published composition by the 11-year-old Franz Liszt. Franz Schubert, the Archduke Rudolf, Pixis, Moscheles, and Kalkbrenner were among the contributors. The 50-composer set of "Diabelli Variations" merits more investigation than it has received.
Yet the idea's greatest significance was that it inspired Beethoven to one of his greatest bursts of creativity. It is not known exactly why Beethoven expanded the original commission, but it seemed for a time that he could not stop writing variations on the theme; the eventual set of 33 variations, known as the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, is one of the all-time masterpieces in the variation form. It also consigned Diabelli to the same position in music as Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, who supplied the theme that Johann Sebastian Bach used in his great Goldberg Variations.
Diabelli's greatest publishing success, however, lay in recognizing the genius of Franz Schubert and bringing him into print for the first time in 1821 with the song "Erlkönig" (The Erl-King). This started a series of publications of Schubert's work. It came temporarily to an end in 1823, due to some misstep of Cappi's that caused Schubert to leave the firm. Cappi and Diabelli parted company in 1824, and the firm was renamed Anton Diabelli & Cie. It entered upon a highly profitable period in which Diabelli took care of artistic matters and his partner Anton Spina (1790 - 1857) did the business work.
The association with Schubert was reestablished posthumously: Diabelli bought a large bulk of the late composer's musical estate from his brother Ferdinand Schubert. The firm systematically and slowly published these works; as with Elvis Presley and the Beatles, "new" Schubert works were still appearing even after Diabelli's death in 1858, 30 years after their composer's death.
Diabelli retired in 1851; Spina continued to run the firm, which became the principal publisher of the music of Johann Strauss II and his brother Joseph. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide
Anton Diabelli (5 September 1781 – 8 April 1858) was an Austrianmusic 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 born in Mattsee near Salzburg. He was trained to enter the priesthood, but also took music lessons with Michael Haydn. He moved to Vienna to teach the piano and guitar before becoming partners with Pietro Cappi in 1818 and setting up a music publishing firm with him.
The firm, Cappi & Diabelli (which became Diabelli & Co. in 1824) became well known by arranging popular pieces so they could be played by amateurs at home. The firm became well known in more serious music circles by becoming the first to publish works by Franz Schubert, a composer the firm later championed.
Diabelli produced a number of works as a composer, including an operetta called Adam in der Klemme, several masses and songs and numerous piano and classical guitar pieces. Among these are pieces for four hands (two pianists playing at one piano), which are popular among amateur pianists.
The composition for which Diabelli is now best known was actually written as part of a publishing venture. In 1819, he decided to try to publish a volume of variations on a waltz he had penned expressly for this purpose, with one variation by every important Austrian composer living at the time, as well as several significant non-Austrians. The combined contributions would be published in an anthology called Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Fifty-one composers responded with pieces, including Beethoven, Schubert, Carl Czerny, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, 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). Czerny was also enlisted to write a coda. Beethoven, however, instead of providing just one variation, provided 33, and his formed Part I of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. They constitute what is generally regarded as one of the greatest of Beethoven's piano pieces and as the greatest set of variations of their time, and are generally known simply as the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120. The other 50 variations were published as Part II of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein.
Diabelli's publishing house expanded throughout his life, before he retired in 1851, leaving it under the control of Carl Anton Spina. When Diabelli died in 1858, Spina continued to run the firm, and published much music by Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss. In 1872, the firm was taken over by Friedrich Schreiber, and in 1876 it merged with the firm of August Cranz, who bought the company in 1879 and ran it under his name.
He died in Vienna at the age of 76.
Diabelli's composition Pleasures of Youth: Six Sonatinas is a collection of six sonatinas depicting a struggle between unknown opposing forces. This is suggested by the sharp and frequent change in dynamics from forte to piano. When forte is indicated, the pianist is meant to evoke a sense of wickedness, thus depicting the antagonist. In contrast, the markings of piano represent the protagonist with its softer, more tranquil tones.
