There are similarities in the combination of scientific and musical interests in the work of both Rudolf Vogel and Gerhard Dorda. Vogel played the violin and was regarded as an excellent draftsman, Dorda composed, but what they both had in common was that as scientists they advanced research that was both basic and applied.
Vogel was considered an important materials researcher and metallographer in his time, even on an international scale. He was said to be a master of qualitative and quantitative description of the microstructure of metallic materials.
Vogel, who studied chemistry at the University of Göttingen, habilitated in 1913 and in 1922 was commissioned by the Württemberg State Trade Office to set up a research institute for precious metals. In 1924 he moved to Berlin to the State Materials Testing Office in Berlin-Dahlem. In 1926 he returned to Göttingen, where he resumed his metallographic research.