Bach Choir at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
| Bach Choir at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church | |
|---|---|
| Seat: | Berlin / Germany |
| Carrier: | Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church |
| Founding: | 1961 |
| Genus: | Bach choir |
| Founder: | Hanns-Martin Schneidt |
| Head : | Achim Zimmermann |
| Voices : | approx. 80 ( SATB ) |
| Website : | http://www.bach-chor-berlin.de/ |
Cantata services
The Bach Choir at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church was founded with the aim of ensuring that the complete cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach are performed regularly and in accordance with the liturgy . Every second Saturday since 1947, a cantata has been performed as part of a cantata service. In the meantime, more than 1,000 cantatas have been performed. There are also masses, oratorios, passions and motets, as well as numerous instrumental concerts, organ and orchestral works. The works of other composers such as Heinrich Schütz , Georg Friedrich Händel , Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , Antonín Dvořák , Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy are also cultivated.
Bach Collegium Berlin
The Bach Choir at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is always accompanied by the Berlin Bach Collegium for cantata services and concerts. The Bach Collegium is an ensemble of committed instrumentalists founded in 1957, all of whom are members of large Berlin orchestras (orchestras of the Deutsche Oper Berlin , Berlin Philharmonic , German Symphony Orchestra Berlin , Staatskapelle Berlin ). In addition to appearances in the nearer Berlin area, as well as in Dresden, Leipzig and Trier, concert tours have taken the choir and collegium to Poland, Spain, Israel, Japan and the USA. Well-known soloists appear regularly in the performances of the two ensembles, with which conductors such as Helmuth Rilling and Thomaskantor Georg Christoph Biller have recently collaborated.
history
On the evening of April 6, 1947, Easter, the performance of the cantata number 4 Christ was in death bands was celebrated, the first service of the cantata cycle that has been carried out to this day. The initiative came from the director of the Inner Mission at the time, the Church Councilor Theodor Wenzel. Supported by Bach researcher Friedrich Smend , he founded the working group for cantata services , which performed the Bach cantatas cyclically until 1961. Four conductors and their choirs shaped the first decade of the cantatas cycle: Gottfried Grote (Spandauer Kantorei), Wolfgang Reimann (State and Cathedral Choir), Paul Hoffmann (Kantorei of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) and Herbert Mützel (Schöneberger Kantorei) . They were supported by an instrumental ensemble that became more and more solid over the years and a group of soloists. The conductor of the participating choir was in charge of the performances.
From 1957 onwards, Hanns-Martin Schneidt , who in 1956 took over the management of the Berlin church music school and the Spandauer Kantorei, performed almost all of the performances. With the founding of the Bach Collegium in 1957 and the Bach Choir in 1961, he created two ensembles that are still dedicated to the cyclical performance of Bach's cantatas.
Choir direction
- Hanns-Martin Schneidt (1961–1963)
- Helmuth Rilling (1963–1964)
- Karl Hochreither (1964-2001)
- Achim Zimmermann since 2002
literature
- Rudolf Elvers and Karl Hochreither (eds.) Bach Cantatas in Berlin - an anniversary publication, commissioned by the Bach Choir at the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, CZV Verlag Berlin, 1991, ISBN 3-7674-0267-X