The composition's creations refers to 1819, when the music publisher Antonio Diabelli (1781–1858), who was very fashionable that time because of his light operas, distributed the plain waltz between his colleagues, the composers, for them to invent variations to it. Beethoven responded with the cycle of thirty-three variations.
The distinguished pianist Alexander Goldenveiser, whose edition and commentaries аre used in this publication, wrote:
“Variations to Diabelli's theme is one of the last compositions by Beethoven, his last composition for piano. Due to the diversity of its quite short variations, the objective of uniting them in one whole requires great artistic maturity of any performer”.