McGill Library
McLennan Library Building3459 rue McTavish
Montreal, Quebec
H3A 0C9
Montreal Mendelssohn Choir donation
Series
7 volumes of choral sheet music
The Montreal Mendelssohn Choir was one of the longest-running musical institutions in Montreal in the nineteenth century. Formed in 1864 by eight choristers from Montreal’s Presbyterian community and directed by Joseph Gould (1833-1913), the Choir grew to include sixty-five members by 1880 and over one hundred in the early 1890s. It served as a musical club for the city’s prosperous English merchant and business classes, with an artistic mission that emphasized good singing of unaccompanied part-song repertoire. The Choir disbanded in 1894 and subsequently donated to McGill University the contents of its musical library in addition to 250 volumes of musical literature.
The Montreal Mendelssohn Choir donated eight volumes of choral sheet music from the Choir’s library in 1895, a year after the Choir’s dissolution. There are only seven extant volumes in the collection because volume 6 has been missing since at least the 1980s.
The original donation comprised volumes 1 to 8; volume 6 is missing.