Court singer (tenor and bass) in Salzburg, well-known for his broad vocal range. He was the original Fracasso in La finta semplice (1769) and toured Italy in 1770, performing with Mozart at the Collegium Germanicum in Rome on 2 May of that year. In 1757, Leopold Mozart described his voice as having a `quite exceptionally pleasing quality` but in a letter of 12 June 1778 to his father, Mozart said of Meissner that `has the bad habit of making his voice tremble at times, turning a note that should be sustained into distinct crotchets, or even quavers—and this I could never endure in him`. At the same time, however, he preferred Meissner`s cantabile to that of another singer he admired and worked with, Anton Raaff. Meissner had married Maria Cäcilia Barbara Eberlin, daughter of the Salzburg Kapellmeister Johann Ernst Eberlin, in 1751. Lit.: Angermüller, `Die vorgesehenen Sänger`; Klein, `Unbekannte Mozartiana von 1766/67`; Clive, Mozart and his Circle, 101; Basso, I Mozart in Italia, 608