He spent most of his life working in France. He moved to Paris in 1776, and entered the service of the
Duke of Montmorency and then of the
Count of Valentinois as a
horn player. He composed a great number of
orchestral and
chamber works but is best remembered for his
oratorio Jephté, performed at the
Concert Spirituel in September 1781, and for his two
operas. Although his music was received favourably, his works never became extremely popular because they were deemed as 'too complicated and
baroque'. Vogel was an enthusiast for the operas of
Gluck, and his first opera, ''
La toison d'or'', is dedicated to the composer as 'législateur de la musique'. In places it appears to be a faithful stylistic imitation of Gluck's two Iphigenia operas,
Iphigénie en Tauride and
Iphigenie auf Tauris , but with a fuller
orchestration and a greater lyricism in the arias. The opera was written in 1781 but was not performed until 5 September 1786 at the
Opéra National de Paris. It played for only 12 performances and was met with limited success since it seemed old-fashioned and contained no
ballet. Philippe Desriaux, for many years the secretary of Baron von Tschudi, wrote the librettos for both ''La toison d'or
and Vogel’s second opera, Démophon''. Its posthumous première (at the Opéra on 22 September 1789) was given only after the première of
Cherubini's opera on the same subject. Among the musical qualities of this work are the variety of recitative forms, the treatment of the
woodwind as solo instruments and the harmonic colour of the
choruses. The
overture, composed in monothematic
sonata form, remained popular into the early 19th century, and was incorporated into
Pierre Gardel's ballet-pantomime
Psyché (1790), which had more than 1000 performances at the Opéra National de Paris between its première and 1829. ==Sources==