Haberl, Franz Xaver

Haberl, Franz Xaver, eminent German organist, music theorist, music editor, and historiographer; b. Oberellenbach, Lower Bavaria, April 12, 1840; d. Regensburg, Sept. 5, 1910. He studied in the Boys’ Seminary at Passau, and took Holy Orders in 1862. He was Cathedral Kapellmeister and music director at the Seminary (1862–67), organist at S. Maria dell’Anima in Rome (1867–70), and Cathedral Kapellmeister at Regensburg (1872–82), where he founded, in 1875, a world-renowned school for church music. He was an authority on Catholic church music. In 1872 he assumed the editorship of the collection Musica Divina, and ed. the periodical Musica Sacra in 1888. In 1876 he began to publ, the Cäcilienkalender, the scope of which was greatly widened until, after 1885, it was issued under the more appropriate name of Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch) as such it has become one of the most important publications for historical studies concerning the church music of the 15^th, 16^th, and 17^th centuries. Haberl continued as ed. until 1907, when he resigned and was succeeded by Karl Weinmann. He founded the Pal-estrina Soc. in 1879, and (beginning with vol. X) was ed. in chief of Breitkopf & Härtel’s complete edition of Palestrina’s works (33 vols., completed on the tercentenary of Palestrina’s death, 1894), which he aided not only by his experience and learning, but also by rare MSS from his private collection. In 1899 he was elected president of the Allgemeiner Cäcilienverein, and became ed. of its official organ, Fliegende Blätter für Katholische Kirchenmusik.In 1889 he was made Dr.Theol. honoris causa by the Univ. of Würzburg, and in 1908, “Monsignore.” Under his general supervision, a new ed. of the Editio Medicea (1614) of the plainchant melodies was issued, with papal sanction, at Regensburg (1871–81). When modern scholarship proved that the original ed. had not been publ, with papal sanction and had not been revised by Palestrina—that, in fact, it contained the old melodies in badly distorted and mutilated form—the papal sanction was withdrawn, and the ed. suppressed and replaced by a new Editio Vaticana in 1904. The result of this was that Haberl’s books dealing with plainchant (which had been held in the highest esteem, and had passed through many eds.) fell into desuetude. The books thus affected are Praktische Anweisung zum harmonischen Kirchengesang (1864), Magister Choralis (1865; 12th ed., 1899; tr. into Eng., Fr., It., Span., Pol., and Hung.), Officium hebdomadae sanctae (1887, in Ger.), and Psalterium vespertinum (1888). His other writings, the value of which remains unimpaired, are Bertalotti’s Solfeggien (1880), Wilhelm Dufay (1885), Die römische “Schola Cantorum” und die päpstlichen Kapellsänger bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts (1887), and Bibliographischer und thematischer Musikkatalog des päpstlichen Kapellarchivs im Vatikan zu Rom (1888).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire