In a long and colorful career extending over many more nations and decades than was usual at the time, Vogler established himself as a foremost experimenter in baroque and early classic music.

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.

[3] He also invented a new system of fingering for the harpsichord, a new form of construction for the organ, and from 1778 to 1781 edited the Betrachtungen der Mannheimer Tonschule – a periodical providing analysis of new compositions and essays on music.

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.

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.

Rather more successful were his tone paintings, performed in his capacity as an organ virtuoso, and Vogler played to packed houses around Europe in 1780s, although critical opinions remained mixed.

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.

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.

His operas Castore e Polluce and Samori received popular acclaim there and he was to gain two ardent disciples – Carl Maria von Weber and Johann Baptist Gänsbacher.