Work: Vaterländischer Künstlerverein, variations on a theme by Anton Diabelli

The story of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations is well known. The composer and publisher Anton Diabelli wanted to promote his new firm, and chose to do so by inviting fifty composers of varying fame to write a variation on his own waltz theme. Beethoven was, of course, the dominant figure in Vienna at the end of the 1810s, and his variation was to be the highlight.