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."
ABC#054 Hey! I Know That Song! - Composers and Interpreters
BBB#023: Philadelphia’s First Gentleman - Henry Plumer McIlhenny
ABC#053: Suited to a Tee - Golf Course Pioneers
BBB #022: Shop Until Thou Droppest - Strawbridge & Clothier: The Early Years
ABC#052: Reach for the Sky - Astronomers of Laurel Hill
BBB#021: Blood on the Tracks at Mile 59 - Duffy’s Cut
ABC#051: ”Killed by Indians” - Four Philadelphians Who Died in Battles with Indigenous People
BBB#020: Helping Standardize the World - Charles Benjamin Dudley and ASTM
ABC #050: A Couple of Haunted Houses - Baleroy & Grey Towers Castle
BBB#019: A Forgotten Photography Pioneer - John Carbutt
ABC #049: White Collar Crime - J. Edward Addicks, Samuel Ashbridge, and Joseph Miller Huston
BBB #018: Courage for the Deed, Grace for the Doing - The Shipley Sisters and Educating Girls
ABC #048: Shattering Some Glass Ceilings - Nellie Neilson, PhD; Sara Yorke Stevenson, DSci; Elizabeth Head Fetter, aka Hannah Lees
BBB #017: Swimming While Black - Raphael & Julia Coel
ABC #047: Three More Black Trailblazers - Dr. James Betts, Barbara Blackshear, ”Jocko” Henderson
BBB #016: A Cult of One’s Own - J. Elimar Mira Mitta
ABC #046: Fathers of American Medicine, Part 3 - Some Ethical Dilemmas
BBB #015: Pulling Out All the Stops - The Laurel Hill Organ Episode
ABC #045 Stogies, Coffin Nails, and Spittoons: Laurel Hill Tobacconists
BBB #014: Physician, Author, Philanthropist - Bushrod Washington James
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra