An entire concert of motets for double choir by German early-Baroque composer Heinrich Schütz is a brave rarity in Australia, even if it mightn’t be quite so unusual for specialist vocal ensembles in Europe like The Tallis Scholars, The Sixteen or Dresdner Kammerchor.

Roland Peelman, among those who founded The Song Company in the mid-1980s, returns as Guest Director for this tour, bringing his precise, cat-like conducting energy to the cycle of songs written in 1671 at the very end of Schütz’s highly productive life (hence the title Schwanengesang: swansong).

The Song Company: Der Schwanengesang (Roland Peelman, director). Photo © Peter Hislop

Schütz was unusual, not only for living to 87 when anyone who survived infancy in Germany was lucky to make it to 50. He bridged musical traditions in two ways: bringing the renaissance into the baroque, and melding German and Italian liturgical styles and forms. Schütz studied in Venice with Giovanni Gabrieli and closely observed Monteverdi at work.

It’s easy to hear the influences of Palestrina and Gabrieli, but Schütz’s melodies and harmony arrangements are less predictable, and at times more impressionistic, prioritising an ‘atmosphere’ and the human response to...