Die Orgel von Johann Konrad Wörle/Giovanni Corrado Verlè (1701 Vils – 1777 Rom) im Oratorio del Crocifisso Rom (1744). Ein Klangporträt by Herausgegeben von Hildegard Herrmann-Schneider (review)

This publication by the Institut für Tiroler Musikforschung, a private institution under the leadership of Dr. Manfred Schneider and not attached to Innsbruck University, is part of a series of treasures in sound from the Tirol that was started about twenty years ago. In most cases the publications in the series have concerned music by composers from the area of all periods down to the current time. This volume, however, commemorates a Tyrolean organ-builder, Johann Konrad Wörle (1701–1777), later known by the Italian form of his name, Giovanni Corrado Verlè, who worked by far the greater part of his life in Rome, where he was an active member of a group of German expatriots called the Confraternita di S Maria della Pietà. He did not build any large instruments but confined himself to constructing chamber organs: thirty-five organs are attributed to him; twenty remain, chiefly in Rome and its environs, of which about half are in playable condition.

The instrument recorded here is one preserved in the Oratorio del Crocifisso in Rome which he built in 1744 and which has remained largely unaltered to the present day. The music recorded is not Tirolean but Italian: the first compact disc demonstrates the organ in a liturgical context while on the second the organ is played as a solo instrument. Music on both compact discs is drawn in part from two Roman manuscripts (I-Rn Mss Musicali 76 and I-Rli Musica M 24/4) and includes two anonymous Masses and one by Girolamo Chiti. In these the organ is played alternatively with the singers (a small group of Benedictine monks from the monastery of Muri-Gries near Bolzano). The solo disc has music by Gaetano Franzaroli, Gio vanni Battista Martini, Lorenzo Rossi, Andrea Basili, and Domenico Zipoli. The organist throughout is the Bern-based Florian Bassani. The twelve stops on the organ give it a pleasant bright timbre. In the text of the book (printed in German, English, and Italian, and bound into the CD case) Hildegard Herrmann-Schneider writes an account of Wörle and provides notes on the composers and the music while Quintilio Palozzi provides an account of the Oratorio del Crocifisso (apparently it was this institution which gave rise to the term ‘oratorio’ that was applied to musical works performed there). In essence this small book (which is extensively illustrated with pictures of the Oratorio, the organ itself, the manuscript sources and the performers) is a two-compact disc box with an exceptionally elaborate and informative sleeve note. It is a handsome production.