Founded in 1928 by Vittorio Gui as the Stabile Orchestrale Fiorentina, from its beginning the Orchestra plays in concerts and operas of the former Teatro Comunale of Florence, now Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. Today the Orchestra is still considered one of the finest orchestras both by conductors and audiences from all over the world. In 1933, on the birth of the Festival, it takes the actual name of Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

After Gui, the principal conductors were Mario Rossi (1937) and Bruno Bartoletti (after the Second World War). Fundamental chapters in the Orchestra history are the years from 1969 to 1981, when the position of principal conductor was given to Riccardo Muti, then to Zubin Mehta, who became Principal conductor from 1985. In its history the Orchestra del Maggio was conducted by the greatest conductors such as: Victor de Sabata, Antonio Guarnieri, Gino Marinuzzi, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Tullio Serafin, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Issay Dobrowen, Jonel Perlea, Erich Kleiber, Artur Rodziński, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Thomas Schippers, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georges Prêtre, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlos Kleiber, Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Seiji Ozawa, Daniele Gatti and Fabio Luisi, from April 2018 to July 2019 as principal conductor. Currently Daniele Gatti is the principal conductor and Zubin Mehta is the Honorary conductor for life.

So many composers conducted a premiere of their music pieces at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino such as: Richard Strauss, Pietro Mascagni, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Goffredo Petrassi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Krzysztof Penderecki and Luciano Berio. Since the fifties, the Orchestra made numerous recordings, also for radio and television, which received major awards including, in 1990, the Grammy Award. At the eightieth anniversary of its foundation, the Orchestra received the Fiorino d’Oro of the City of Florence.