Singer, Peter (Alkantara) (actually, Josef Anton)

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Singer, Peter (Alkantara) (actually, Josef Anton)

Singer, Peter (Alkantara) (actually, Josef Anton), Austrian organist, music theorist, teacher, instrument maker, and composer; b. Unterhaselgehr, North Tirol, July 18, 1810; d. Salzburg, Jan. 25, 1882. He became a Franciscan monk in 1830, and was made a priest in 1837. He served as organist and choirmaster in Bolzano and Innsbruck (1837–40), and then at the Salzburg Franciscan convent. He wrote over 100 masses, some 40 motets, 15 litanies, numerous Marian hymns, many offertories, etc. In 1839 he invented the “Pansym-phonikon,” a kind of orchestrion with reeds. He publ. Metaphysische Blicke in die Tonwelt, nebst einem neuen System der Tonwissenschaft (Munich, 1847).

Bibliography

Pater Hartmann, P. S. (Innsbruck, 1910); V. Keldorfer, Der Spielmann des Herrn Pater P. S. (Salzburg, 1952).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire