Music: Discord in Los Angeles

The sedate Los Angeles Philharmonic met competition last week—and did not much like it. The upstart who provided the competition was a hawk-eyed, gloomy-looking U.S. composer-conductor, Werner Janssen, who, well in advance of the Philharmonic’s opening, led his 48 musicians through their first concert of the season.

Son of the late Manhattan restaurant keeper (“Janssen Wants to See You”), Werner Janssen pounded and hacked his way to a musical career, over the grim opposition of his father, who wanted him to carry on in Janssen’s Hofbrau. In the early 1930s the younger Janssen made his splash with Europe’s great orchestras, was rated tops in playing Sibelius, by the great Finn himself. But when the New York Philharmonic-Symphony tried him in 1934, Janssen failed to click. He went to Hollywood, wrote the score for The General Died At Dawn, married Actress Ann Harding. For two years Janssen has carpentered music for Walter Wanger.

When Werner Janssen formed his symphony last year, critics praised its smooth string playing (its motto: “Every man a Heifetz”), the variety of its music. But when the Janssen Symphony wangled eight dates on California’s Standard Symphony Hour, the Los Angeles Philharmonic began to jitter. The Philharmonic, founded in 1919 by Copperman William Andrews Clark Jr., and nurtured until his death in 1934 by about $3,000,000 of his money, now depends on the public for support (deficit: $100,000 or more a year). The Philharmonic was afraid that Los Angeles could not support two symphonies.

This autumn the Philharmonic raided the Janssen Symphony, captured its first cellist and two of its Heifetzes. A program annotator and a lady sponsor, each connected with both orchestras, were told to make their choice. Conductor Janssen, sole backer of his orchestra, seemed unperturbed. His audience last week was near capacity (1,290). He had four more concerts scheduled (and four for children), with two newsworthy world premieres up his sleeve—new works by Paul Hindemith and Igor Stravinsky.