Werner Janssen
Werner Janssen (June 1, 1899 – September 19, 1990) was an American composer and conductor who wrote classical music and film scores. He was the first New York-born conductor to lead the New York Philharmonic and he received six Academy Award nominations for his film work.
He was born in New York City to August Louis Janssen and Alice Bianca E. Janssen. His father ran a restaurant, and the family lived near George M. Cohan in Great Neck. Cohan encouraged Werner to pursue music, and Werner later taught piano to Cohan’s daughters. As a teen, he heard Cohan’s songs being written next door, which helped fuel his love of music. Although his father wanted him to join the family business, Werner pursued a musical career after finishing school.
Werner attended Phillips Exeter Academy and then supported his own music studies at Dartmouth College by working as a waiter, performing in cabarets, and selling his songs. He studied at the New England Conservatory with George Chadwick and Frederick Converse and studied piano with Arthur Friedheim, a pupil of Liszt. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and earned a bachelor’s degree in music at Dartmouth in 1921. He began writing jazz songs for Tin Pan Alley, and two of his numbers were recorded in 1920. He wrote for the Ziegfeld Follies in 1925–1926, and these songs helped fund his conducting studies in Europe with Felix Weingartner and Hermann Scherchen. He also received a Juilliard Fellowship and a Rome Prize for his tone poem New Year’s Eve in New York, which premiered in 1929 with the Rochester Philharmonic.
Janssen’s conducting career took him across Europe and back to the United States. He led orchestras in Rome and other European cities, conducted a concert of Sibelius’s works in Helsinki in 1934 (which received high praise from Sibelius), and was awarded Finland’s Order of the White Rose in 1936. He became associate conductor of the New York Philharmonic for the 1934–35 season and, on November 8, 1934, he became the first American-born conductor to lead the orchestra. He also conducted the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra from 1937 to 1939. At the same time, Janssen wrote film music; his first credited score was for The General Died at Dawn (1936), which received an Academy Award nomination, the first of six for his work.
In 1939 Janssen left Baltimore to work with film producer Walter Wanger. He wrote scores for many films, including Blockade, Winter Carnival, The Southerner, Captain Kidd, Ruthless, and Uncle Vanya. He also created non‑film music, such as the Foster Suite, String Quartet No. 2, Octet for Five, and Quintet for 10 Instruments. In 1940 he formed the Janssen Symphony in Los Angeles, a rival to the Los Angeles Philharmonic that focused on contemporary music and film scores. The group made recordings for Capitol Records. He teamed with producer David L. Loew to create the Musicolor series of short musical films, including Toccata and Fugue and Enchanted Lake.
Janssen held several other directing posts, including music director of the Utah Symphony (1946–47), the Oregon Symphony (1947–49), and the San Diego Philharmonic (1952–54). He also worked with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, and the Vienna Volksoper. He returned to the United States in the early 1970s. An account from his era mentions his complicated relationship with concert promoter Arthur Judson.
Werner Janssen was married three times. He died on September 19, 1990, in Stony Brook, New York, at the age of 91.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 02:11 (CET).