VOGLER, GEORG JOSEPH usually known as Abbe or Abt (Abbot) Vogler, German organist and composer, was born at Pleichach in Wiirzburg on June 15, 1749. His father, a violin maker, while educating him in the Jesuit college, en couraged his musical talent, and at ten years old he could play the organ, the violin and other instruments. In 1771 he went to Mannheim, where he composed a ballet for the elector Karl Theodor, who sent him to Bologna in 1774 to study under the Padre Martini. He soon left Martini and went to Valotti and Padua for five months, after which he proceeded to Rome. There he became a priest, was admitted to the famous academy of Arcadia and was made a knight of the Golden Spur.
On his return to Mannheim in 1755 Vogler was appointed court chaplain and second "maestro di cappella." In 1778 the elector removed his court to Munich. Vogler followed in 1780, but presently went to Paris, where his new system was eventually recognized as a continuation of that started by Rameau. His organ concerts at St. Sulpice attracted considerable attention. For the queen, he composed the opera Le Patriotisme, which was produced before the court at Versailles.
His travels were wide, and extended over 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 "or chestrion"—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. The abbe'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 imita tion of a storm. Browning's poem has made his name familiar. He continued to work hard to the last, and died suddenly of apoplexy at Darmstadt on May 6, 1814.