Mani Matter (4 August 1936 in Herzogenbuchsee – 24 November 1972 in Kilchberg, Zurich, officially Hans-Peter Matter) was a popular Swiss singer-songwriter.

This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2016)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (April 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,118 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Mani Matter]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Mani Matter}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Background information, Birth name ...

Mani Matter
Mani Matter (1970)
Background information
Birth name	Hans-Peter Matter
Born	(1936-08-04)4 August 1936 Herzogenbuchsee, Switzerland
Died	24 November 1972(1972-11-24) (aged 36) Kilchberg, Zurich, Switzerland
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1965–1972
Labels	Zytglogge
Website	www.manimatter.ch

Close

Mani Matter was born on 4 August 1936 in Herzogenbuchsee, Canton of Bern. His father, Erwin Matter, was a lawyer, his mother, the Dutch woman Wilhelmina Matter-de Haan, was a secretary. He had a two years older sister, Helen Matter.

Growing up in Bern, he started to perform his own chansons in contemporary Bernese German at local venues and on the radio; he accompanied himself on the guitar. He was an active Boy Scout in the Pfadicorps Patria in Bern^{[citation needed]} and he performed his first own songs during Boy Scout evenings. He also performed together with the Berner Troubadours (Bernese troubadours). He was killed in a car accident on his way to a concert and is buried in the Bremgartenfriedhof in Bern.^[1] Mani Matter's literary estate is archived in the Swiss Literary Archives in Bern.

His Bernese German songs remain very popular in the Swiss German speaking part of Switzerland, and Matter is a great influence on the dialect music scene in Bern, and his songs are frequently covered. A collection of cover-versions was published in 1992 on the album Matter Rock.^[2] Mani Matter's chansons are often taught at school (including classes for adults wanting to learn Bernese German) and are famous for their soft irony.

• 1966 I han en Uhr erfunde (EP, "I invented a watch")
• 1967 Alls wo mir id Finger chunnt (EP, "Anything I touch")
• 1970 Hemmige (EP, "Inhibitions")
• 1972 Betrachtige über nes Sändwitsch (EP, "Contemplations on a sandwich")
• 1973 Ir Ysebahn (LP, "On the railroad")
• 1973 I han es Zündhölzli azündt (double-LP, "I lit a match")