1832 - 1900
His successor Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen (27 September 1778 - 21 December 1851) continued the Bach revival with a performance of St. John's Passion and the Mass in
B minor (first performances since Bach's death), but even more important to him was to maintain the tradition of Händel oratorios. Additionally, he presented contemporary oratorios by Mendelssohn, R. Schumann, Loewe, Spohr, and many others.
August Eduard Grell (6 November 1800 - 10 August 1886) did not push this tradition further when he took over as director of the Sing-Akademie in 1851. Rather, he held on to what was established, only continued the revival of Bach's oratorios and led the first performance the Christmas Oratorio since Bach's death on 17 December 1857. Apart from that, he pays homage to the ideal of 'naked vocal music', i.e. a-cappella singing, devoting his Mass for 16 voices to this genre, following Fasch's example, with whose Mass the history of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin started.
Like his predecessors, MartinTraugott Blumner (21 November 1827 - 16 November 1901) grew organically into the directorship of the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin. Having been deputy director since 1853, he moved up to the post of director in 1876, without an election. Apart from the traditional oratorios, especially by Bach as well as by himself, he performed works by Berlin academics, like Friedrich Keil Albert Becker. He only ventured to perform Brahm's German Requiem in 1886.