HABERL, FRANZ XAVIER. - Musician and musicologist, b. at Oberellenbach on 12 April 1840, d. at Regensburg on 5 September 1910. Having entered the Seminary of Passau, he was ordained a priest there in 1862. Until 1867 he was choirmaster at the Cathedral; he then moved to Rome, where he remained until 1870 as organist of S. Maria dell'Anima, beginning deep studies on the history of religious music of the 15th and 17th centuries, which was thereafter the field of his greatest activity.
Choirmaster at Regensburg, in 1874 he founded there the celebrated Schola cantorum which trained distinguished musicians, and gave a strong impulse to the Cecilian movement for the restoration of sacred music, later carried out by Pius X. A contributor to numerous periodicals, in 1876 he founded the Cäcilienkalender, transformed in 1885 into the Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch. He published Die römische Schola cantorum, und die päpstlichen Kapellsänger bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg 1887); Bibliographischer und thematischer Musikkatalog des päpstlichen Kapellarchiv im Vatican zu Rom (ibid. 1888) and continued Proscke's collection Musica divina. From vol. X he edited the monumental edition of Palestrina's Opera omnia produced by the house of Breitkopf and Härtel of Leipzig; he also published a part of the works of Orlando di Lasso and of Frescobaldi. The new reprint of liturgical chants in addition to the editio medicea of the Graduale Romanum, believed to be by Palestrina, brought him troubles among scholars, and induced the Holy See to have its continuation and diffusion suspended together with many related writings.
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