Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein

A Brief History of the Airborne Symphony and Their Friendship

Oct 8, 2009

While music has celebrated the friendship between Leonard Bernstein and the 'Dean' of American composers, Aaron Copland, it has overlooked a tie of equal importance.

As he was making a transition from Harvard theory student to conducting protégé of Sergei Koussevitzky during the Second World War, Bernstein developed a strong relationship with Philadelphia-born composer Marc Blitzstein.

Blitzstein and Bernstein Make Acquaintance

The two first met at Harvard University during a production of Blitzstein’s notable opera The Cradle Will Rock in 1939. Blitzstein became a logical role model for Bernstein in his youth; 13 years Bernstein’s senior, he had reached the Philadelphia Orchestra concert schedule as a pianist by age 21. After studying with Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger, he launched a highly underrated composing career.

Blitzstein’s concert and stage music reflects populist trends from the first half of the twentieth century, similar to that of Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and Walter Piston. His straightforward, easily approachable style touched a raw nerve in critics, but his memorable themes influenced Bernstein profoundly.

The two men shared a Jewish heritage and a commitment to music for ordinary Americans. These were bonds that reached their summit when Bernstein conducted the premiere of Blitzstein’s Airborne Symphony in 1946.

The Airborne was originally commissioned as a film score by the U. S. Army Air Force when Blitzstein was enlisted as a composer, scriptwriter, and translator in London. This mammoth work, scored for narrator, tenor and baritone soloists, male choir, and large orchestra, was not finished until after World War II had ended and the original drafts had been lost en route from England. Bernstein, however, recognized the Airborne’s social and musical significances from what little information was at hand.

In late 1945, Blitzstein visited Bernstein in New York and played sections of the Airborne from memory on piano, most likely in his frenetic style of singing and passing off occasional remarks. Bernstein, understanding its connection between warfare and the dangers of flight, reserved Blitzstein’s work for a later performance despite the absence of a finished score.

Blitzstein reconstructed the work and it debuted on April 1, 1946, with Orson Welles as narrator, Charles Holland as tenor, Walter Scheff as baritone, the Robert Shaw Collegiate Chorale, and Bernstein leading the New York City Symphony Orchestra. The work was surprisingly well-received, although its subject called back unpleasant memories that had begun to fade. Blitzstein received the 1946 New York Music Critics’ Circle Award and the Page One Award of the New York Newspapers Guild for his effort.

Blitzstein's Reputation

If one hears Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2 (The Age of Anxiety) and Symphony No. 3 (Kaddish), the influence of this mentor and his Airborne are very much present. Within the Mahlerian and Shostakovich-like framework is a compromise between traditional tonality and the serialism that reshaped music. In Blitzstein, one hears ballads, folk song, jazz, and even a barbershop quartet gracing the huge expanse of a twentieth century symphony. It was a precursor to Bernstein’s achievement, which fuses classical and popular idiom into a single, coherent language.

Bernstein gave Blitzstein’s symphony what few performances there have been, even making two records of the Airborne some twenty years apart. When Bernstein died in 1990, Blitzstein probably lost his greatest promoter. Blitzstein’s operas The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer, and Regina are still neglected, while the Airborne is seldom performed. Blitzstein’s most popular conception is not even his own; it is an English-language adaptation of Weill’s The Threepenny Opera.

Blitzstein’s reputation has suffered from political emphasis and ‘outdated’ subject matter. Yet to fully understand American music’s evolution in the twentieth century, Blitzstein needs to be given his rightful place. After Blitzstein died in January 1964, Bernstein wrote: ‘Mr. Blitzstein was so close a personal friend that I cannot even begin to measure our loss of him as a composer. I can only think that I have lost a part of me; but I know also that music has lost an invaluable servant.’

Gordon, Eric A. Marc Blitzstein: The Airborne Symphony (1943-46). New York, NY: American Symphony Orchestra, 1995.

Gordon, Eric A. Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 1989.

Jansson, John. The Marc Blitzstein Web Site. www.marcblitzstein.com, 1997-2009.

Page, Tim. Booklet notes for Bernstein Century: American Masters 2: Piston/Blitzstein/Hill. New York, NY: Sony Music Entertainment, 2000.

Sadie, Stanley. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed. London, England: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.

The copyright of the article Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein in Classical Composers is owned by Paul-John Ramos. Permission to republish Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.