The Philadelphia Orchestra has been one of America’s “Big Five” philharmonics for more than a century. As it was being assembled in the late 1890s, it looked like the job of “first conductor” would go to local concertmaster and second generation Irish-American Harry Gordon Thunder, but instead the position went to Johann Friedrich Ludwig “Fritz” Scheel, a German immigrant with seemingly unlimited energies and innovations, but the job probably shortened his life.
In contemporary times, the first violinist chair was held for decades by Germantown-born William Joseph de Pasquale, a calm, dependable right-hand man to the conductor, and one of four brothers who played together in a string quartet.
These three men – Thunder, Scheel, and de Pasquale – are part of the reason that the Philadelphia Orchestra has its universal reputation. You can hear about them this month on “Biographical Bytes from Bala: Laurel Hill West Stories #028 – The Philadelphia Orchestra and Laurel Hill West."
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