Gus Haenschen

Gus Haenschen (November 3, 1889 – March 27, 1980) was a pianist, arranger and composer of music, and orchestra conductor, primarily on U.S. network radio programs.

Early years Born Walter Gustave Haenschen in St. Louis, Missouri to parents whose relatives had emigrated from Germany and settled in that city. His uncle taught music in Europe and in Chicago. Haenschen attended McKinley High School. While he was in elementary school, he carried newspapers to earn money, and as a high-school student he and some friends formed the Eclipse Novelty Company to make pennants to sell at baseball games. As a teenager, he played piano to accompany silent films in St. Louis theaters while refining his technique under the guidance of ragtime composer Scott Joplin, with whom he studied briefly.

Haenschen's involvement in music progressed in 1913, when he was an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He was asked to help Haenschen asked musicians in St. Louis for advice about conducting and arranging music, and their tips helped him to produce the program and to form a career in music. The group's engagements, many of which were acquired from a music-booking agency created by Gene (Eugene Frederick) Rodemich, a self-taught pianist who paid Haenschen to write arrangements for his St. Louis band. With financing from Rodemich's father, a prominent dentist, he and Haenschen formed their own music publishing company, issuing sheet music for their own compositions. Rodemich's agency booked Haenschen's banjo orchestra for open-air dances in St. Louis's city parks. in 1931–32. In 1928, he and two other Brunswick executives, Percy Deutsch and pianist-arranger Frank Black (of the best-selling recording quintet The Revelers), formed the World Broadcasting Company, also known as the World Broadcasting System. With the popular orchestra leader Ben Selvin as a silent partner, Deutsch, Haenschen, and Black built their own recording facility, called "Sound Studios," for recording high-quality discs of popular and light-classical music for lease to radio stations which could not afford to have their own orchestras. These sixteen-inch discs were known as "transcriptions," and were sent to subscribing radio stations throughout the U.S., especially ones located in less populated areas.

Through their World Broadcasting Company, Gus Haenschen and Frank Black also developed radio programs for large stations in major metropolitan areas. The first of these was "The Champion Hour," sponsored by the automotive-parts company of the same name. Because Champion spark plugs were a nationally known brand, the program's orchestra and chorus were billed as "The Champion Sparkers."

In the mid-1940s, he directed the orchestra at WJR in Detroit. Bayer Musical Review; Coca-Cola Song Shop; Lavender and Old Lace; Maxwell House Show Boat; His other transcribed radio programs included Chevrolet Musical Moments Revue.

In the late 1940s, Haenschen and two partners formed HRH Television Features Corporation to produce English versions of grand opera for television. By April 1949 they had 57 operas ready for production. Each opera was condensed in a way that maintained continuity, eliminating "the unimportant and often tiresome parts of the score, retaining only the important parts."

Composing and arranging Songs composed by Haenschen included "Easy Melody", "Silver Star", "President Coolidge March", "The St. Louis Society Dance", and (with A. Bernard) "Keep on Going, When You Get Where You're Going You Won't Be Missed at All".Haenschen composed some of the music for the Broadway production Grand Street Follies (1926), and he was the arranger for the musical No Foolin''' (1926). He and Arthur W. Profix composed the musical The Hawaiian Follies'' (1918).

Later career After Haenschen stopped conducting, he worked with G. H. Johnston on broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.