Founded in late 1922, the BBC's initial output was heavily music oriented. The General Manager, John Reith, made arrangements with Percy Pitt, musical director of the British National Opera Company, to broadcast operatic performances from the Royal Opera House, and by May 1923 Pitt was on the BBC pay-roll as a part-time musical advisor. Under Pitt's guidance, in-house musical ensembles such as the "2LO Dance Band", the "2LO Military Band", the "2LO Light Orchestra", and the "2LO Octette" were developed, and the BBC began broadcasting symphony orchestra concerts in the same year. 　　By 1924, the company felt it was in a position to develop its in-house choral output. Stanford Robinson was engaged as chorus master, and he proceeded to form a 16-voice choir, the BBC Wireless Chorus, made up entirely of professional singers, which was called upon to rehearse and perform on-air near daily. A larger choir, the BBC Choir, was developed for bigger works, recording Handel's Messiah in 1927 and Gounod's Faust in 1929-30, both with Thomas Beecham; a vocal octet, the BBC Wireless Singers, was created using Wireless Chorus singers as a semi-separate entity; and in 1928 a full sized symphony chorus was created, named the BBC National Chorus. This last, which recorded Elijah under Stanford Robinson in 1930, was renamed The BBC Chorus in 1932. 　　Significant changes to the BBC's choral set-up came in 1934-5 with the appointment of Leslie Woodgate as the Corporation's chorus master. Under him, three distinct but inter-related choirs were established. The Wireless Chorus, with its sub-group the Wireless Singers, remained a 16-person group, entirely professional, paid a weekly salary, and rehearsing and performing daily; Woodgate however renamed it The BBC Singers, and divided it into Section-A and Section-B, each of 8 people. Section-A specialised in "madrigals and modern music", and was paid £1 per week more than Section-B, which specialised in light music, "part-songs and glee, and other small types"; the two sections would sometimes combine in bigger or complex works. 　　Section-B of the BBC Singers also formed the core of the BBC's new mid-sized choir, The BBC Chorus. This was a choir of 42 professional singers, tasked with performing the more complicated choral pieces broadcast by the BBC considered unsuitable for an amateur chorus. The Chorus was sometimes sub-divided into Sections-A, -B, and -C, and also into the BBC Men's Chorus and the BBC Women's Chorus: the Men's Chorus was a popular presence, performing "students songs, chanties, and so on", with the accompanist Ernest Lush delivering commentary from the piano; the Women's Chorus was less frequently heard, Woodgate on one occasion explaining "not many listeners are keen about women's voices over the air". Unlike the BBC Singers, the BBC Chorus (and its subdivisions) had fewer performances commitments on the BBC schedules, and so rehearsed less frequently. Its numbers also varied from performance to performance - anywhere between 9 and the full 42 might be required in any performance, and its numbers were occasionally augmented.