The name "Philharmonia" was adopted by the impresario and recording producer Walter Legge for a string quartet he brought together in 1941, comprising Henry Holst, Jean Pougnet, Frederick Riddle and Anthony Pini.

[11] Unlike the existing London orchestras, but like Beecham's Royal Philharmonic, the early Philharmonia was not a permanent ensemble: it was convened ad hoc from available players on Legge's list.

[n 4] In the early years, Karajan's concerts were criticised in the press for their unadventurous programming;[n 5] but a financially hazardous tour of Europe in 1952 necessitated programmes that were box-office attractions.

[22] Karajan told the orchestra that he felt it his duty to show Europe "the exceptional qualities of tone, aristocracy and vitality" of the Philharmonia's playing.

[23] The violinist Joseph Szigeti commented that the Philharmonia "showed the Continent for the first time all the qualities of perfect chamber-music playing raised to the power of a great symphony orchestra.

[27] Legge realised that Furtwängler was in declining health and that sooner or later Karajan would succeed him as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic and Salzburg Festival and be lost to the Philharmonia.

[30] Among alternatives favoured by Legge and the orchestra was Guido Cantelli, who conducted some well-received recordings and concerts; his death in a plane crash in 1956 at the age of thirty-six deprived the Philharmonia of a potential replacement for Karajan.

[34] In The Observer Peter Heyworth wrote that with so fine a choir and "our best orchestra" and a great conductor, Legge had given London "a Beethoven cycle that any city in the world, be it Vienna or New York, would envy".

The RPO went through difficult times after Beecham's death in 1961;[37] neither the BBC SO or the LPO had yet regained its pre-war excellence;[38] and the LSO was only in the early stages of its return to eminence.

Looking back in 1975 at the heyday of his orchestra, he singled out for particular mention not only Brain and Civil, Kell and Bradshaw, but also Clement Lawton (tuba), Arthur Gleghorn (piccolo), Gareth Morris (flute), Sidney Sutcliffe (oboe), Frederick Thurston and Bernard Walton (clarinets), Gwydion Brooke (bassoon), and two leaders, Manoug Parikian and Hugh Bean.

[3] Legge maintained retrospectively that in the absence of enough recording work to attract the finest new orchestral players to follow such stars he had no alternative to disbanding the Philharmonia.

The music critic of The Times commented that Boult's point was underlined by "the resplendent, intense sound he drew from choir and orchestra during the concert.

[52] The NPO was rescued from financial disaster by two musical philanthropists, one anonymous and the other Ian Stoutzker, a prominent banker, who offered either to buy the orchestra outright or, as occurred, to underwrite its finances.

[53] Leading players of the early 1970s included Raymond Cohen, Desmond Bradley, Carlos Villa (violins), Herbert Downes (viola), Gareth Morris (flute), John McCaw (clarinet), Gwydion Brooke (bassoon) and Nicholas Busch (horn).

[n 8] By 1972, seventeen of the sixty-six string players were women, although the other three sections remained exclusively male, except for the veteran harpist, Sidonie Goossens.

Although Legge no longer had any stake in the orchestra he watched its progress benevolently, and having spotted the potential of Riccardo Muti he recommended him to the New Philharmonia's general manager, Terence McDonald.

[63] Critics at the time commented on the orchestra's "superb performance", "immense virtuosity", its "astoundingly delicate" string playing and "woodwind phrasing even more magical than their Berlin colleagues".

[65] With Muti the orchestra recorded opera (Aida, 1974; Un ballo in maschera, 1975; Nabucco, 1977; I puritani, 1979; Cavalleria rusticana, 1979; La traviata, 1980; Orfeo ed Euridice, 1981; and Don Pasquale, 1982); a wide range of the symphonic repertoire including Schumann and Tchaikovsky cycles; concertos with soloists including Sviatoslav Richter, Andrei Gavrilov, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Gidon Kremer; and choral music by Cherubini and Vivaldi.

Later Decca sessions were conducted by Boult, Britten, Giulini, Maazel, Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Charles Munch, Leopold Stokowski, and in 1967 Christoph von Dohnányi, who three decades later became the orchestra's chief conductor.

[70] Leading members of the orchestra in the later years of Muti's tenure included Raymond Ovens (leader), Gordon Hunt (oboe), Adrian Leaper (horn), John Wallace (trumpet) and David Corkhill (percussion).

Although the orchestra's standards remained high during Sinopoli's tenure, the conductor had what David Nice has described in The Guardian as "a love-hate relationship" with the public and critics, because of his "slow speeds and mannered, sometimes lifeless phrasing".

[73] The same writer continues that the Philharmonia players did not take to "Sinopoli's peculiarly Italian brand of intellectualism; London musicians never like too much talk, let alone an analytic seminar on the work in question".

[73] By 1990 it was far from certain that Sinopoli's appointment would last until 1994 as scheduled, but he brought to the orchestra a lucrative recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon and tours to countries including Japan and Germany where the conductor was held in very much higher regard than in Britain.

Nice comments that the Philharmonia players "lent an unprecedented degree of tonal beauty" to their opera recordings with Sinopoli;[73] they included Manon Lescaut, 1983;[74] La forza del destino, 1985;[75] Madama Butterfly, 1987;[76] Cavalleria rusticana, 1990;[77] and Tosca, 1992.

He praised its "astute and canny" management, and commented that the orchestra had a large, loyal following in London, and had gained additional support elsewhere in Britain by extending its touring programme while the Festival Hall was closed for renovation between 2005 and 2007.

[79] Dohnányi's final tour with the orchestra as chief conductor was of the US, where they gave concerts in Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Costa Mesa, California.

Under Salonen the orchestra has taken part in a series of projects at the Festival Hall: "City of Light: Paris 1900–1950" (2015), "City of Dreams: Vienna 1900–1935" (2009), "Bill Viola's Tristan und Isolde" (2010), "Infernal Dance: Inside the World of Béla Bartók" (2011), "Woven Words", a centenary celebration of Witold Lutosławski (2013) and "Myths and Rituals", a five-concert festival of music by Igor Stravinsky (2015–17).

[79] In recent years the Philharmonia's extensive international touring schedule has included appearances in China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Iceland, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.

[112] Live recordings of some of the orchestra's early concerts have been issued on CD, including Strauss conducting the Sinfonia Domestica, Furtwängler and Flagstad in the first performance of the Four Last Songs, and Toscanini's Brahms cycle.

A later live recording was the last concert conducted by Klemperer (September 1971: Beethoven Overture: King Stephen, and Fourth Piano Concerto with Daniel Adni; and Brahms's Third Symphony).