WAGNER, PETER. - Musicologist and Gregorianist, b. at Kürenz (Trier) on 19 Aug. 1865, d. at Fribourg in Switzerland on 17 Oct. 1931.
A singer in the cathedral choir, he studied at 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 in 1901 the "Gregorianische Akademie," which was a vital center of practical studies and theoretical research on Gregorian chant. In 1907 he was the first president of the Internationale Gesellschaft für Musikwissenschaft then founded. He was a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican edition of the Graduale Romanum, of the German Academy of Berlin and of the Swedish Academy of Stockholm.
His principal studies have as their subject Gregorian chant with the historical and paleographic problems inherent in it; Mozarabic chant too was the object of passionate research and the subject of learned dissertations. Among his many works, all of the greatest historical interest, the following are 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 has appeared); Einführung in die katholische Kirchenmusik (ibid. 1919). Other valuable monographs are printed in miscellanies and in journals; he also published organ accompaniments to the Gregorian Graduale and Vesperale.
Bibliography3 works
Luisa Cervelli