Wagner, Peter (Joseph)

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Wagner, Peter (Joseph)

Wagner, Peter (Joseph), eminent German musicologist; b. Kurenz, near Trier, Aug. 19, 1865; d. Fri-bourg, Switzerland, Oct. 17, 1931. He studied at the Univ. of Strasbourg, receiving his Ph.D. in 1890 with the diss. Palestrina als weltlicher Komponist (publ, as “Das Madrigal und Palestrina,’ Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft,VIII, 1892); he studied further in Berlin under Bellermann and Spitta. In 1893 he was appointed an instructor at the Univ. of Fribourg in Switzerland; subsequently he was a prof. (1902-21) and rector (1920-21). In 1901 he established its Académie Grégorienne for theoretical and practical study of plainsong, a field in which he was an eminent authority. He was a member of the Papal Commission for the Editio Vaticana of the Roman Gradual (1904) and was made a Papal Chamberlain.

Writings

Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien: Ein Handbuch der Choralwissenschaft (vol. I, Fribourg, 1895; 3rded., 1911; Eng. tr., 1907; vol. II, Leipzig, 1905; 2nded., 1912; vol. III, Leipzig, 1921); Elemente des gregorianischen Gesanges zur Einführung in die vatikanische Choralausgabe (Regensburg, 1909); Geschichte der Messe I: bis 1600 (Leipzig, 1913); Einführung in die katholische Kirchenmusik: Vorträge gehalten an der Universität Freiburg in der Schweiz für Theologen und andere Freunde kirchlicher Musik (Düsseldorf, 1919).

Bibliography

K. Weinmann, ed., Festschrift P. W. zum 60. Geburtstag (Leipzig, 1926).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire