Membership card, 1907

Celebrations of the silver jubilee season commenced with the first performance in Scotland of Bach’s Mass in B Minor at a concert in the McEwan Hall in December 1907.
Messiah was performed on new year’s day 1908 in the Music Hall.

Messiah concert, January 1908.

As a finale to the season a concert was staged for which the Hallé Orchestra was engaged. The choir, numbering 333 voices equally divided between men and women, sang Schubert’s Song of Miriam and Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with Dr T H Collinson conducting. Dr Collinson had been engaged as conductor of the choir in 1883 and continued in the post until 1913.

Cover of 1908 History with logo

Inside front cover

Former vice-president of the choir, James Waddell, produced an exhaustive 320-page history of the first 50 years of ECU (not as yet with “Royal” status), which was published in 1908. To cap it all, a civic reception was given in the City Chambers by the Lord Provost, magistrates and Council of the City, thought to be the first occasion on which a local choral society had been honoured in such a manner.

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