The Irish chamber choir Resurgam is staging a three concert retrospective of the seventeenth-century German composer Heinrich Schütz at City Hall in Dublin on 9, 16 and 23 February 2013. The choir, directed by Mark Duley, will be joined by Camerata Kilkenny and the sackbutt and cornett ensemble QuintEssential.

Schütz (1585—1672) was sometimes known as Sagittarius (from the Latin form of his name) — Resurgam have also taken this name for the series. His music is especially notable for the combination of Italian and German influences and Resurgam’s series draws attention to the composer’s role in bringing Italian innovations of the early Baroque northward.

In his early twenties, after a period studying law in Marburg, Schütz went to Venice for four years to study under the composer Giovanni Gabrielli. Schütz’s compositions are influenced by the style of his teacher, notably the polychoral tradition (a kind of Baroque precursor of surround sound). Resurgam’s first concert focusses on music from this period and the composers who would have influenced Schütz.

After returning to Germany, Schütz worked as court composer to the Elector of Saxony in Dresden and established what has become the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden (later to be conducted by Richard Wagner and Carl Maria von Weber). He travelled to Italy again for a year in 1628 to study with Claudio Monteverdi and Resurgam’s second concert focusses on Monteverdi’s influence and the changes to Schütz music in this period. Schütz’s wanderlust at this time is perhaps even more significant when seen in the context of the Thirty Years’ War (1618—1648), which wiped out a third of the population in what is primarly the Germany of today.

The third concert looks at music from Schütz later years, after his return to Germany. This last concert will feature the period brass of QuintEssential and important vocal works from Schütz’s mature period.

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