Berlin’s longest serving player was… a harpist

All week long, archivists at the Berlin Philharmonic have been burrowing through files on behalf of Slipped Disc to determine who, in 140 years, had the longest tenure.

In recent times, matter have been complicated by German legislation which sets the earliest hiring age at 18 and a mandatory retirement age of 65, rising soon to 66/67.

So it’s no huge surprise to find that one of the founding players, the first harp, played longest.

Here is the official top 10:

54 years: Otto Müller jun., b. 1867 in Berlin, d. 1939 in Berlin, harp, BPH 1882 – 1936

50 years: Franz Veit, b. 1879 in Teplitz-Schönau, d. 1959 in Berlin, violin, concertmaster, viola, BPH 1900-1950

48 years: Hugo Blume, b. 1855 in Berlin, d. 1925 in Berlin, timpani, percussion, flute (!), BPH 1882 – 1925

46 years:

Andreas Blau, b. 1949 in Berlin, principal flute, BPH 1969 – 2015

Peter Brem, b. 1951 in Munich, violin, BPH 1970 – 2016

Otto Feist, b. 1867 in Remda, d. 1948 in Berlin, principal trumpet, BPH 1894 – 1940

Peter Steiner, b. 1928 in Berlin, d. 2003 in Berlin, principal cello, BPH 1948 – 1994

spot the harp?

Coming soon: Veterans of the Vienna Phil.

See also: The world’s longest serving orchestral musicians