Werner Janssen

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Werner Janssen (1 June 1899, New York City – 19 September 1990, Stony Brook, New York) was an American conductor and composer.

His father, a well-known caterer and restaurateur, opposed a musical career for his son. Therefore, after graduating Phillips Exeter Academy he had to support his own musical education at Dartmouth College. He did this by being a waiter, performing in cabarets and theaters, and selling his own popular compositions. At the New England Conservatory of Music he studied with the composers George Chadwick and Frederick Converse. He also studied piano with Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Franz Liszt. After service in the infantry in World War I, he returned to his studies and earned a bachelor's degree in music at Dartmouth College in 1921. He began to compose jazz songs for Tin Pan Alley. He made recordings as a pianist of two of his popular songs in 1920.

He composed for the Ziegfield Follies of 1925 and 1926 and wrote several songs which became national hits. This helped finance his conducting studies 1920-1921 with Felix Weingartner in Basel and 1921-1925 with Hermann Scherchen in Strasbourg. He also received a Juilliard Fellowship and the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome for his tone poem for large orchestra in a jazz idiom New York's Eve in New York. That composition received its premiere from the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Howard Hanson on May 8, 1929. In 1930, it was performed by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Nikolai Sokoloff , and was recorded in 1929 by The Victor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret.

He was engaged in 1927 by the National Broadcasting Corporation to direct symphony concerts on the radio but was dismissed early on. He was also hired in 1929 by Samuel Roxy Rothafel to conduct at his Roxy Theater but was soon dismissed from that post as well.

Three years of studying in Rome at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with mentor Ottorino Respighi resulted in several new compositions including the Louisiana Suite and the string quartet American Kaleidoscope performed by the Quartetto di Roma. His work with that group led to an engagement to conduct the Royal Orchestra of Rome. He also took conducting engagements throughout Europe (including Berlin, Budapest, Copenhagen, Riga, Stockholm, and Turin). He conducted an entire concert of the works of Jean Sibelius in Helsinki in February 1934. Sibelius said of this concert: "You may say that tonight Finland has for the first time discovered my music. This achievement of Janssen's is the deed of a hero". After a second concert, he received on March 8, 1936 the Order of the White Rose from the government of Finland for his contribution to Finnish music.

He was appointed associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1934-1935 season, and on November 8, 1934 he became the first American born conductor to lead the orchestra. He became the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra 1937-1939.

While he guest conducted he also began to write film music. His first credited film score was for The General Dies at Dawn (1936), which was nominated for an Academy Award, the first of six Janssen scored films to be nominated. In 1939, he resigned his position with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra to work with film producer Walter Wanger. He composed several other film scores including Blockade (1938), Winter Carnival (1939), Eternally Yours (1939), Slightly Honorable (1940), The House Across the Bay (1940), Guest in the House (1944), The Southerner (1945), Captain Kidd (1945), A Night in Casablanca (1946), Ruthless (1948), and Uncle Vanya (1957). He was also responsible for the score for the 1966 German television production Robin Hood, der edle Ritter (Robin Hood, the Noble Knight). He continued to write non-film compositions too, including the Foster Suite (1937), the String Quartet No. 2 (1938), the Octet for Five (1965), and the Quintet for 10 Instruments (1968).

In 1940 he formed the Janssen Symphony in Los Angeles, which became a rival organization to the Los Angeles Philharmonic and a forum for contemporary music until 1952. Compositions for this were commissioned from American composers. This group performed and recorded film music, musical theater works, and contemporary musical scores. Numerous recordings were made by this orchestra for Capitol Records. Janssen formed a partnership with producer David L. Loew to produce the Musicolor series of classic musical shorts, including Toccata and Fugue (1946) and Enchanted Lake (1947), filmed in Cinecolor.

Janssen was the music director of the Utah Symphony 1946-1947, the Oregon Symphony 1947-1949, and the San Diego Philharmonic (1952-54). He also had positions at the NBC Symphony Orchestra ("Symphony of the Air") 1956, Toronto Symphony Orchestra (1956-1957), the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Orchestra (1959-1961) and the Vienna Volksoper. Recordings with the latter included Karl-Birger Blomdahl's opera, Aniara; and Sergei Prokofiev’s opera War and Peace. He returned to the U.S. in the early 1970s.

His first marriage, in 1937 was to actress Ann Harding who he met in Hollywood and married in London. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1963 (the actress accused her husband of giving her an ulcer). His second marriage was to Christina Heintzmann. He had three children, Werner Jr., Alice Krelle, and Jennifer.

[edit] Awards

Juilliard Fellowship
Rome Prize for Musical Composition, American Academy in Rome, 1930
Honorary Doctor of Music from Dartmouth College, 1935
Order of the White Rose, Knight First Class, 1936

[edit] References

American National Biography (2004)
Composers of Today, 2nd Edition (1936)
Grove Music Online
IMDB entry [1]
Living Musicians 1st Supplement; Living Musicians (1940)
Who Was Who in America, 10th ed., Chicago: Marquis (1993)
"Werner Janssen, 91; Led Philharmonic in New York in 30's" New York Times, September 21, 1990