Felix Weingartner was music director from 1898 to 1905, and the young Wilhelm Furtwängler made his auspicious conducting debut there in 1906.

After the war, the orchestra was taken over by the City of Munich and restarted under the leadership of composer Hans Pfitzner, soon replaced by Bruckner pioneer Siegmund von Hausegger.

In a well-publicised case, Celibidache tried to remove principal trombonist Abbie Conant from her position because of her gender, and paid her less than her male colleagues without her knowledge.

Apart from that, she lacks the required empathy to translate the artistic wishes of the General Music Director[3]Conant successfully sued the City of Munich, after a lengthy legal procedure, in 1983.

The court found that "The suit is permissible because the change in work assignments, due to the lack of a substantiated argument, is unjustified."

Writing in Der Spiegel in 1991, Violinist Carla Spannbauer said I advise Abbie Conant to come to North Rhine-Westphalia: the Bonn orchestra is on the same level as the Munich Philharmonic (also in terms of tariffs), and yet my colleagues have no need of xenophobia or misogyny.

As far as generosity and tolerance towards foreigners and women are concerned, the German cities and their philharmonic orchestras Munich and Berlin could still learn a lot from Bonn.

[12] In February 2023, the orchestra and the Munich City Council announced the appointment of Shani as its next chief conductor, with an initial contract of 5 years.

[13] Over the course of its history, the Munich Philharmonic has performed premieres of Günter Bialas, Anton Bruckner, Harald Genzmer, Luigi Nono, Gustav Mahler and others.