In Mainz, a four-century-old oratorio is reborn

A largely forgotten chapter of early German Baroque music returns to the place where it was born. On 27 September, the Landesmuseum Mainz will host the first complete revival of Daniel Bollius’s (c. 1585–1638) Repraesentatio harmonica conceptionis et nativitatis S. Joannis Baptistae.

A composer at the Mainz court from the 1620s onwards, Bollius conceived this depiction of the conception and birth of St John the Baptist for the birthday of the Prince-Archbishop and Elector Johann Schweikhard von Cronberg, whose death 400 years ago is commemorated in 2026. The work is particularly valuable for its adoption of the new monodic style from Italy, making it one of the earliest experiments in oratorio north of the Alps, contemporary with Heinrich Schütz’s Historien in Dresden.

Its revival has been prepared by musicologist Klaus Pietschmann of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and conductor Johannes Herres, who will direct the performance. Soloists Theresa Klose, Fabian Kelly and Matthias Lutze, the Enona vocal ensemble and Plectrum musicum, performing on period instruments, will bring this court music back to life. Extracts will be heard beforehand in Aschaffenburg on 25 September, recalling the close ties that once linked the two cities.

Above all, this rediscovery reveals how rapidly new musical languages from Italy reached the German courts: Bollius was among the first German composers to embrace the Italian concertato style, while his monody-based Repraesentatio ranks among the earliest known experiments in oratorio north of the Alps.