A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Vogl, Johann

by Carl Ferdinand Pohl

VOGL, Johann Michael, distinguished opera-singer, and, with Baron von ^[1]Schönstein, one of the principal interpreters of Schubert's songs, born Aug. 10, 1768, at Steyer in Upper Austria. A chorister in his native town at seven, he was systematically grounded in singing, theoretically and practically, and thus early acquired flexibility of voice and purity of intonation. He had his general education in the monastery of Kremsmunster, and took part there in little Singspiele by Süssmayer, giving considerable promise both as singer and actor. He next went to the University of Vienna, and was about taking a permanent post in the magistracy of the City when Süssmayer engaged him for the Court-opera. He played with the German Opera Company formed by Süssmayer in the summer of 1794, and made his début as a regular member of the Court Opera in the following May. From that period till his retirement in 1822 (his last appearance was in Grétry's 'Barbe-bleue,' 1821), he was a great favourite, and held an important position as a singer and an actor in both German and Italian opera. Gifted with a baritone voice of sympathetic quality, his method was excellent, and his phrasing marked by breadth, intelligence, and great dramatic expression. Such parts as Oreste (Iphigénie en Tauride), Jakob (Schweizerfamilie), Count Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro), Micheli (Deux Journées), Kreon (Médée), Telasco (Ferdinand Cortez), and Jacob (Méhul's Joseph), show the range of his powers. He became acquainted with Schubert somewhere about 1816, through the latter's friend Schober,^[2] and the two quickly learned to appreciate and esteem each other. Vogl recognised Schubert's genius, urged him to produce, and did his best to make him known by singing his songs both in public and private. The 'Erl-König' was first introduced by him to the general public at a musical entertainment at the Kärnthnerthor Theatre (March 7, 1821), though it had been sung before at a soirée of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Jan. 25) by Herr von Gymnich, an excellent amateur. Vogl in his diary calls Schubert's compositions 'truly divine inspirations, utterances of a musical^[3] clairvoyance,' and Schubert, writing to his brother Ferdinand, says, 'when Vogl sings and I accompany him we seem for the moment to be one, which strikes the good people here as something quite unheard of.' In the summer of 1825 the two friends met at Steyer, and made a walking tour through Upper Austria and Styria, singing Schubert's songs like a couple of wandering minstrels at all their resting-places, whether monasteries or private houses. Schubert publicly testified his esteem by dedicating to Vogl 3 Lieder (op. 6), published in 1821.

Vogl's early conventual education left its traces in his fondness for serious study, to which all his spare time was devoted, his favourite authors being Goethe and the Greek classics. In 1823 he went to Italy, and on his return in the following spring astonished his friends by announcing his marriage with the daughter of the former director of the Belvedere, whom he had long treated as a sort of pupil. One of his last appearances in public was at a soirée of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in 1833, when he sang the 'Wanderer.' His last years were passed in great bodily suffering, cheered only by intellectual occupation. He died in 1840, Nov. 19, on the same day on which his friend Schubert had departed 12 years before, and was buried in the churchyard of Matzleinsdorf, where rest Gluck and his wife (1787), Salieri (1825), and the eminent singer Forti (1859), Staudigl (1861), and Ander (1864). The inscription on his tombtone runs—

Here lies Joh. Michael Vogl,
the German minstrel,
born 10 Aug. 1768, died 19 Nov. 1840.
To the revered and tenderly loved
Husband and Father.

[ C. F. P. ]

1. See vol. iii. p. 268.
2. See vol. iii. p. 256, 327b.
3. See vol. iii. p. 327.