  COMPASS is a fixed-target experiment at the CERN SPS for the investigation of
the structure and the dynamics of hadrons. The experimental setup features a
large acceptance and high momentum resolution spectrometer including particle
identification and calorimetry and is therefore ideal to access a broad range
of different final states. Following the promising observation of a spin-exotic
resonance during an earlier pilot run, COMPASS focused on light-quark hadron
spectroscopy during the years 2008 and 2009. A data set, world leading in terms
of statistics and resolution, has been collected with a 190GeV/c hadron beam
impinging on either liquid hydrogen or nuclear targets. Spin-exotic meson and
glueball candidates formed in both diffractive dissociation and central
production are presently studied. Since the beam composition includes protons,
the excited baryon spectrum is also accessible. Furthermore, Primakoff
reactions have the potential to determine radiative widths of the resonances
and to probe chiral perturbation theory. An overview of the ongoing analyses
will be presented. In particular, the employed partial wave analysis techniques
will be illustrated and recent results will be shown for a selection of final
states.
