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The Bach Choir is a large independent musical organisation, founded in London, UK, in 1876 to give the first performance of J. S. Bach's ''Mass in B minor'' in Britain.〔 The choir has around 220 active members. Directed by David Hill (BBC Singers/Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra), one of the country’s most eminent choral directors,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Rayfield Allied – David Hill )〕 it regularly performs and records across London and the UK, for example the Royal Albert Hall and Abbey Road Studios. The choir's patron is HRH The Prince of Wales,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Patronages )〕 and the conductor laureate was Sir David Willcocks,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Bach Choir Sings Bruckner @www.classicalsource.com )〕 who previously held the post of Musical Director of the choir from 1960-1998. Other Musical Directors have included Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Reginald Jacques. In 2013, John Rutter was appointed as President of the choir, following the death of Leopold de Rothschild in 2012.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=John Rutter succeeds Leopold de Rothschild as President of The Bach Choir - The Bach Choir - The UK's finest independent choir, based in London )〕 The Vice Presidents are Dame Janet Baker, James Bowman, Dame Felicity Lott and Sam Gordon Clark. The Bach Choir has an extensive recorded output to which it regularly adds new titles, and is also in demand for film scores. In recent years, it has featured on some of the biggest film releases, such as Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Robin Hood, The Chronicles of Narnia, Shrek the Third, and Jack the Giant Slayer.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Hire The Bach Choir - The Bach Choir - The UK's finest independent choir, based in London )〕 In 2011, it collaborated with John Rutter and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on ''The Colours of Christmas'', which reached No 3 in the Official Classical Charts.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Classical Chart, Saturday 7 January 2012 - Radio New Zealand Concert )〕 In 2013, it also worked on projects for BBC Radio 3, BBC One, Sky Arts and Sky Sports News.〔 The choir's relationship with classical label Naxos Records, developed under current Musical Director, David Hill, has led to many acclaimed releases, including Howells' Stabat Mater, Vaughan Williams' Dona Nobis Pacem / Sancta Civitas in 2010, which received a Gramophone award nomination,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Classical Music News: Gramophone Awards 2010 – Naxos and Distributed Labels’ Albums )〕 and Frederick Delius' A Mass of Life, which received a coveted ''Choc de Classica'' from French classical magazine ''Classica'', and album of the week from both The Sunday Times and The Telegraph.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=DELIUS, F.: Mass of Life (A) / Prelude and Idyll (J. Watson, Wyn-Rogers, A. Kennedy, Opie, Bach Choir, Bournemouth Symphony, D. Hill) )〕 == Early Years == Formed originally in 1875 for the sole purpose of giving the first complete British performance of J. S. Bach's ''Mass in B minor'',〔The first known complete performance had been given in Leipzig by the Riedel-Verein on 10 April 1859. See ("Bach's Greatest Enigma - The Mass in B minor" ), BBC Radio 3, accessed 19 June 2011. Sections of the score had been given in Britain under conductors including John Hullah before 1876, but this was the first complete performance in Britain: see "Bach's Mass in B Minor", ''The Times'', 11 May 1876, p. 5〕 the Bach Choir then continued and developed so that today it has become one of the leading amateur choirs in the world. The original idea came from Arthur Duke Coleridge, a young lawyer and outstanding amateur tenor, who had become acquainted with the Mass while a student at Leipzig, where he studied music along with the young Charles Villiers Stanford.〔Elkins, p. 62〕 He formed a committee to promote a British performance of the Mass, recruiting George Grove and John Stainer to serve on it. They appointed as musical director Otto Goldschmidt, the husband of Jenny Lind (the "Swedish Nightingale") who, as a former pupil of Felix Mendelssohn in Leipzig, had a good knowledge of the music of Bach. Within six months a choir was recruited and two performances of the Mass, conducted by Goldschmidt, were given on 26 April and 8 May 1876.〔 The success of the concerts encouraged the formation of a permanent choir with Goldschmidt as the first musical director.〔 The declared aim of the choir was "the practice and performance of choral works of excellence and of various schools".〔 Initially membership was exclusively drawn from the upper levels of Victorian society since this was the social group in which both Coleridge and Goldschmidt moved. Among the singing members was Princess Christian, the fifth child of Queen Victoria.〔Webb, Stanley. ("A Century of Bach", ) ''The Musical Times'' Vol. 117, No. 1597 (March 1976), pp. 225–227〕 Among the founder-members was W.E. Gladstone.〔 This exclusivity was perpetuated because recruits had to be proposed and seconded by existing members and approved by the committee.〔 Of greater concern for the future health of the choir, however, were the lack of a requirement for regular re-audition and a five o'clock rehearsal time. While the latter ensured that the evening social life of the members was not disturbed, rehearsal attendance by tenors and basses with business interests soon became a cause for concern. A positive feature of the wealthy membership, however, was that programming could be more adventurous without the need to resort to performances of the popular oratorio repertoire to secure essential funds. The repertoire in the Goldschmidt years was biased towards motets and Renaissance church music, a reflection of his particular interest, but the connection with Bach was maintained by regular performances of the Mass in B minor and some of the cantatas. Goldschmidt resigned in 1885 to be replaced by Stanford, organist of Trinity College, Cambridge and conductor of the Cambridge University Musical Society, who had recently been appointed professor of composition at the Royal College of Music. Stanford expanded the repertoire with programmes which included the Brahms ''Requiem'', excerpts from ''Parsifal'', the Verdi ''Requiem'' and other contemporary works. From the beginning there had been a connection with royalty and Queen Victoria became patron in 1879. To mark her golden jubilee in 1887 the choir invited Hubert Parry to compose its first commissioned work for inclusion in the concert programme. In response Parry produced the choral ode ''Blest Pair of Sirens''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Bach Choir」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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