On his return to Mannheim in 1775 Vogler was appointed court chaplain and second “maestro di cappella.” He now established his first great music school, to which Winter, Ritter, Kraus, Danzi, and Knecht came for instruction. His pupils were devoted to him, but he made innumerable enemies, for the principles upon which he taught were confessedly opposed to those of all other teachers whatsoever. He had invented a new system of fingering for the harpsichord, a new form of construction for the organ, and a new system of musical theory founded upon that of Valotti. Mozart condemned the fingering as “miserable.” The proposed change in the construction of the organ consisted in simplifying the mechanism, introducing free-reeds in place of ordinary reed-stops, and substituting unisonous stops for the great “mixtures” then in vogue. The theoretical system, though professedly based upon Valotti’s principles, was to a great extent empirical, and, like the scheme for revolutionizing the organ, has long been forgotten. Nevertheless, a certain substratum of truth seems to have underlain all his new heresies; and, by virtue of this, in spite of a rage for reform amounting almost to madness, 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 1778 the elector removed his court to Munich. Vogler followed him thither in 1780, but, dissatisfied with the reception accorded to his dramatic compositions, soon quitted his post, and travelled for some years in Spain, Greece, Armenia, remote districts of Asia and Africa, and even Greenland, in search of uncorrupted forms of national melody. In 1786 he was appointed “kapellmeister” to the king of Sweden, founded his second music school at Stockholm, and attained extraordinary celebrity by his performances on an instrument called the “orchestrion,”—a species of organ invented by himself. In 1790 he brought this instrument to London, and performed upon it with great effect at the Pantheon, for the concert-room of which he also constructed an organ upon his own principles. Gerber alleges that organ pedals were unknown in England until Vogler introduced them, during his residence in London. This assertion is disproved by a MS. Concerto, by Handel, now in the Royal Library at Buckingham Palace, dated February 17, 1740, and containing an obbligato pedal part; nevertheless, it is certain that the abbé’s pedal-playing excited great attention. His most popular pieces were a fugue on themes from the “Hallelujah Chorus,” composed after a visit to the Handel festival at Westminster Abbey, and A Musical Picture for the Organ, by Knecht, containing the imitation of a storm.

From London Vogler proceeded to Rotterdam and the chief towns on the Rhine. At Esslingen he was presented with the “wine of honour” reserved for the use of sovereigns. At Frankfort he attended the coronation of the emperor Leopold II. He then visited Stockholm, and after a long residence there, interrupted by endless wanderings, once more established himself in Germany, where his compositions, both sacred and dramatic, received at last the full credit that was due to them. To trace his journeys from end to end of Europe would be impossible. We hear of him at Berlin in 1800, at Vienna in 1804, and at Munich in 1806. But while at Frankfort in 1807 he received an invitation from Louis 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 Meyerbeer. Gänsbacher had been his pupil at Vienna. Weber had studied under him in 1803, and once more sought his old master’s help in 1810, though rather in the way of advice than instruction. Meyerbeer had been first introduced to him by means of a fugue which he criticized very severely, though he saw in it so much talent that he invited the composer to become his pupil. The three young students were inseparable, and their affection for their old master was unbounded.

One of Vogler’s latest exploits was a journey to Frankfort in 1810, to witness the production of Weber’s Sylvana. He continued hard at work, genial and pleasant to the last, and died suddenly of apoplexy at Darmstadt, May 6, 1814.

Opinions are strangely divided as to the reality of Vogler’s vocation. Some have pronounced him a genius, others a charlatan. Mozart was strongly prejudiced against him. That he was a brilliant and accomplished performer no one denies. It is certain that he was an excellent, if an eccentric, teacher. But his theories were visionary, and of his numberless compositions not one has survived to the present day.