He later studied in Leipzig with Gottfried Wilhelm Fink, Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann.
[3] He wrote reviews for the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik[1] and the Musikalisches Wochenblatt (Musical weekly).
In 1881, Dörffler wrote the review of 100 years Gewandhaus for the centenary of the concert hall, Festschrift zur hundertjährigen Jubelfeier der Einweihung des Concertsaales im Gewandhause zu Leipzig, including a statistic of the concerts during this period.
[4] Dörffler founded a library for literature on music, which became part of the Musikbibliothek Peters, opened in 1894.
Dörffler was a member of the Masonic Lodge Balduin zur Linde from 1842 and composed several works for their meetings, often on texts by Gotthard Oswald Marbach [de].