Vogler was born at
Pleichach in
Würzburg. His father Jared Vogler was a
violin maker and instrument-maker for the
Prince-Bishop of Würzburg. The young Vogler studied law and theology in Würzburg and
Bamberg, however he had possessed a prodigious talent and interest in music from childhood and continued to pursue that interest as a university student. In the late 1760s he was introduced to the Elector Palatine
Karl Theodor, receiving appointment as the latter's
almoner at the court in
Mannheim in 1770. Vogler became active in composing and performance there, and in 1771 his first major theatrical piece
Singspiel – Der Kaufmann von Smyrna was performed for the court. In 1773 he was sponsored by the court to study under the
Padre Martini in
Bologna. Dissatisfied with the method of that learned theorist, he studied for five months under
Francesco Antonio Vallotti at
Padua, and met
Johann Adolph Hasse in
Venice. He afterwards proceeded to
Rome, where, having been ordained priest, he was admitted to the famous
Academy of Arcadia, made a knight of the
Golden Spur, and appointed protonotary and chamberlain to the
pope. On his return to Mannheim in 1775, Vogler was appointed court chaplain and second
maestro di cappella. From this position he was able to found a school to educate both amateur and aspiring musicians. His pupils were devoted to him, but he made innumerable enemies, for the principles upon which he taught were opposed to those of all other teachers. Two major musicological contributions followed:
Tonwissenschaft und Tonsetzkunst on the theory of
harmony, and
Stimmbildungskunst on voice training. Mozart condemned the fingering as "miserable", the young composer finding little musical success in Mannheim now musically dominated by Vogler. The proposed change in the construction of the organ consisted of simplifying the mechanism, introducing free-reeds in place of ordinary reed-stops, and substituting unisonous stops for the great "mixtures" then in vogue. Vogler's writings on musical theory, though professedly based upon Vallotti's principles, were to a great extent empirical. Nevertheless, in virtue of a certain substratum of truth which seems to have underlain his new theories, Vogler undoubtedly exercised a powerful influence over the progress of musical science, and numbered among his disciples some of the greatest geniuses of the period. In 1786 he was appointed
Kapellmeister by
Gustav III of Sweden and founded his second music school in
Stockholm. His major composition of this period was
Gustav Adolf och Ebba Brahe, as well as the
Pieces de Clavecin and a series of organ studies and didactic works on musical theory. He attained extraordinary celebrity by his performances on an instrument called the "
orchestrion", a species of organ invented by himself. As a member of the Swedish court he visited
Saint Petersburg in 1788 where he met the
Copenhagen organ builder Kirsnick (one of the first known to use free reeds in organ pipes). Starting in 1790 Vogler changed all the organs he performed on by adding new registers with free reeds. The first organ that was changed was in Rotterdam, and as many as 30 known rebuilds of organs followed. Under his tutelage, both would become well known composers in their own right. After Vienna, Vogler continued to travel around Germany. While at
Frankfurt in 1807 he received an invitation from
Ludwig I,
grand duke of
Hesse-Darmstadt, offering him the appointment of
Kapellmeister, with the order of merit, the title of
privy councillor, a salary of 3000
florins, a house, a table supplied from the duke's own kitchen, and other privileges, which determined him to bring his wanderings at last to a close. At
Darmstadt he opened his third and most famous music school, the chief ornaments of which were Gänsbacher, Weber, and
Giacomo Meyerbeer. One of Vogler's last journeys was to Frankfurt in 1810, to witness the production of Weber's
Sylvana. He continued to work hard in music and organ building in old age, and died suddenly of
apoplexy at Darmstadt on 6 May 1814. ==Works==