WAGNER, PETER. — Musicologist and Gregorianist, born at Kürenz (Trier) on 19 August 1865, died at Fribourg in Switzerland on 17 October 1931.
A chorister in the Cathedral choir, he studied in Trier, Strasbourg, and Berlin; from 1897 he taught music and music history at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), of which he was rector in 1920–21. There he had founded the «Gregorianische Akademie» in 1901, which became a vital center for practical studies and theoretical research on Gregorian chant. In 1907 he was the first president of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft, founded at that time. He was a member of the Pontifical Commission for the edition of the Vatican Graduale Romanum, of the German Academy of Berlin, and of the Swedish Academy of Stockholm.
His principal studies concern Gregorian chant and the historical and paleographical problems connected with it; Mozarabic chant, too, was the subject of passionate research and learned dissertations. Among his many works, all of the greatest historical interest, may be cited: Das Madrigale und Palestrina, Leipzig 1892; Francesco Petrarca « Vergini » in der Komposition des Cipriano de Rore (ibid. 1893); Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien, 3 vols. (ibid. 1901–21); Über traditionellen Choral und traditionell. Choralwoltrag (ibid. 1905); Der Kampf gegen die « Editio Vaticana » (ibid. 1907); Elemente des gregorianischen Gesangs (ibid. 1909); Geschichte der Messe (ibid. 1914; only vol. I was published); Einführung in die katholische Kirchenmusik (ibid. 1919). Other valuable monographs were printed in miscellanies and journals; he also published organ accompaniments to the Gregorian Graduale and Vesperale.