1781–1858 · Austria · Classical
Anton Diabelli (1781–1858) was an Austrian composer, guitarist and music publisher, better known in his own time as a publisher — among others, of Franz Schubert's works. Today he is remembered above all as the composer of a waltz: Ludwig van Beethoven wrote 33 piano variations on its theme, known as the “Diabelli Variations”. The site holds Diabelli's piano four-hand pieces — a cycle of études and a cycle of sonatinas at different levels of difficulty.
Anton Diabelli was born in September 1781 in Mattsee, near Salzburg. He received his first lessons in singing, piano and organ from his father. His musical gift showed early: he sang in the Salzburg boys' choir and is believed to have studied with Michael Haydn.
His parents intended their son for the priesthood: in 1796 he entered the Wilhelmsgymnasium in Munich, a Latin school. By the age of nineteen, however, Diabelli had already written several significant works, including six masses. In 1800, to complete his theological training, he entered the monastery at Raitenhaslach in Bavaria, where he went on composing with Michael Haydn's support.
In 1803 the Bavarian authorities closed the monasteries, and Diabelli had to leave Raitenhaslach. He gave up his plan to become a priest and devoted himself entirely to music, settling in Vienna, where he began giving piano and guitar lessons and took a job proofreading for a music-publishing house.
From 1806 to 1815 Diabelli worked at S. A. Steiner's publishing house, “Chemische Druckerei”, learning the publishing trade. In these same years, in 1809, he composed the operetta “Adam in der Klemme”. In 1807 the Italian guitar virtuoso Mauro Giuliani arrived in Vienna, and an artistic exchange grew up between them that mattered for Diabelli's guitar compositions: he wrote for solo guitar, for guitar duo and trio, house and chamber music combining guitar with piano and other instruments, and songs with guitar accompaniment. The experience he had gathered led him, in 1815, to petition the Vienna magistrate for permission to open his own publishing house for his own compositions.
To composing and performing was now added another line of work: having received permission, Diabelli opened his own publishing house in September 1817. At first he issued church music, and later also arrangements of well-known works. In 1818 he met Pietro Cappi, and together they ran the publishing firm “Cappi & Diabelli”.
The firm quickly became known for arranging popular tunes so that amateurs could play them at home: the arrangements included well-known opera melodies, dance music and new comic-theatre songs.
Publishing Franz Schubert's works also earned the firm a reputation among serious musicians: in 1821 Diabelli became the first to publish Schubert's song “Erlkönig”, as his opus 1, followed by more of the composer's songs and piano works. Later, Schubert's friends accused Diabelli of having financially shortchanged the composer in the process.
The partnership with Cappi ended in 1824: on 1 June that year Diabelli signed a new agreement — Anton Spina, who bought out Cappi's share of the business, became co-owner, and the firm was renamed “Diabelli & Comp.”. They split the duties: Diabelli looked after the artistic side, Spina the commercial one. In 1849 Anton Spina's son, Carl Anton Spina, joined the business; the firm kept expanding until Diabelli retired in 1851.
For one of his publishing projects, Diabelli composed a waltz and invited composers of his day to respond to it — one variation each, for a joint collection that was later named “Vaterländischer Künstlerverein”. Fifty-one composers took up the invitation, Beethoven among them; their variations formed the second volume of the collection. Ludwig van Beethoven, instead of a single variation, wrote thirty-three at once — they formed the first volume and are known today as the “Diabelli Variations”, opus 120; the collection appeared in 1823. Beethoven's variations are widely regarded as one of his greatest piano works and as one of the most significant sets of variations of their time.
Among those who responded were other notable musicians too — Franz Schubert, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles and Carl Czerny. The eight-year-old Franz Liszt also responded: it seems the boy himself was not invited personally, and his participation was arranged by his teacher Carl Czerny, who also wrote the collection's closing section.
In 1851 the firm's affairs passed to Carl Anton Spina: suffering from atherosclerosis, Diabelli withdrew completely from publishing and, on his own initiative, had himself placed under guardianship — Leopold von Sonnleithner became his representative. Spina also received Diabelli's former title of imperial court music dealer, and Diabelli thereafter called himself a “former court music dealer”. From 1 January 1852 the firm was named “Carl A. Spina”.
Diabelli, however, never stopped composing: his new works were still issued by “Carl A. Spina”, his last known work is dated 25 February 1857, and as late as 8 October 1857 he sent Spina a letter with corrections. Anton Diabelli died in April 1858 in Vienna, at the age of 76 — the death register gives “paralysis of the brain” as the cause; he was buried at St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna.
Diabelli's name lives on in musical life today. Since 2014 an international composers' competition has been held in his name: its entrants are set a shared theme, so that the competition entries are easier to compare with one another. A chamber ensemble is also named after him, the Diabelli Trio — flute, viola and guitar — whose repertoire places Viennese classical works alongside music by Astor Piazzolla and Scott Joplin.
The site holds Diabelli's pieces for piano four hands. Numerically, guitar pieces dominate his output, but it is precisely his piano four-hand pieces that are popular — and those are what the site presents.
The first cycle is “28 melodische Übungsstücke”, op. 149: twenty-eight pieces for piano four hands. Their primo part is built on a narrow range of just five notes — the cycle was created as material for early piano teaching, though the site holds its more advanced numbers, at upper intermediate and advanced levels. Even within that narrow range, the pieces turned out melodically appealing, harmonically rich and diverse in form.
The second cycle is the six sonatinas of “Jugendfreuden”, op. 163: also for piano four hands, also published on the site at upper intermediate and advanced levels, in two books. In the general design of such teaching cycles of Diabelli's, difficulty builds up gradually — from pieces with a narrow range of notes, through sonatinas, to more expansive sonatas, and the two cycles on the site show part of that path.
In all, Diabelli's legacy comprises more than two hundred compositions across almost every musical genre — from piano pieces for two and four hands and teaching material for piano and guitar to orchestral, chamber and choral works, an operetta, cantatas and masses.
Diabelli's church music was valued for being accessible and convenient to perform: his Pastoral Mass, op. 147, and his “Landmesse”, op. 107, are still performed fairly often today, while his stage and musical-dramatic works brought him less success.
From the years when Diabelli himself taught guitar comes a guitar method of his own, along with other teaching materials; for solo guitar and guitar duo he wrote mainly sonatas, sonatinas, variation works, serenades and arrangements of popular opera melodies.