Cradle Will Rock

Marc Blitzstein’s biggest and best-remembered hit, The Cradle Will Rock was a left-wing dream when it opened in 1937, in the middle of the Great Depression. Both an attack on wealth and the political power it brings, and a paean to labor and poor people struggling to get by, the show got a huge publicity boost from its legendary opening.

Available Works

Airborne Symphony

For orchestra, speaker, solo voices, and men’s chorus
Text by Marc Blitzstein

50 minutes

First Performance: New York City Symphony; Leonard Bernstein, conducting –April 1, 1946

Cain

Ballet in two scenes and an interlude

30 minutes

First Performance: Bruckner Haus, Linz, Austria –February 28, 2019

Children’s Cantata

by Marc Blitzstein

Edited by Leonard Lehrman

cantata for children’s chorus and piano

ca. 20 minutes

The Cradle Will Rock

Play in music in ten scenes
Music, lyrics, and book by Marc Blitzstein

ca. 2 hours

First Performance: New York, Venice Theatre (unauthorized) –June 16, 1937

Freedom Morning

for orchestra

10 minutes

First Performance: London, Royal Albert Hall –September 28, 1943

The Guests

ballet

20 minutes

First Performance: New York City Ballet –January 20, 1949

The Harpies

one-act opera
text by Marc Blitzstein

20 minutes

First Performance: New York, Manhattan School –May 25, 1953

Innocent Psalm

for solo piano

Invitation to Bitterness

Text by Marc Blitzstein

ca. 3 minutes

First Performance: New York City, Merkin Hall –September 20, 1989

I’ve Got the Tune

radio opera
Text by Marc Blitzstein

30 minutes

First Performance: Columbia Broadcasting –October 24, 1937

Juno

Musical in two acts.
Book by Joseph Stein, lyrics by Marc Blitzstein, based on Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey.

full evening

First Performance: Winter Garden, New York –March 9, 1959

Native Land

feature film score

First Performance: screening, New York –May 11, 1942

No for an Answer

opera in two acts

90 minutes

First Performance: Mecca Temple, New York –January 5, 1941

Orchestra Variations

15 minutes

First Performance: American Composers Orchestra, New York –October 9, 1988

Piano Concerto

30 minutes

First Performance: Brooklyn Philharmonic –January 1, 1986

Piano Percussion Music

(“Percussion Music for Piano”)

12 minutes

First Performance: Steinway Hall, New York –March 21, 1929

Piano Solo

for solo piano

20 minutes

First Performance: Mellon Galleries, Philadelphia –February 5, 1934

Piano Sonata

for solo piano

7 minutes

First Performance: League of Composers, New York –February 12, 1928

Regina

(New York City Opera version)
Opera in three acts
Libretto by Marc Blitzstein, based on The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman

full evening

First Performance: 46th Street Theater, Broadway –October 31, 1949

Regina (Scottish Opera version)

Opera in 3 acts.
Libretto by Marc Blitzstein, based on The Little Foxes, by Lillian Hellman.
Edited by John Mauceri and Tommy Krasker.

full evening

First Performance: Scottish Opera –May 16, 1991

Scherzo: “Bourgeois at Play”

for solo piano

3 minutes

Serenade for String Quartet

ca. 17 minutes

First Performance: Yaddo Artists' Colony –April 30, 1932

String Quartet, “Italian”

ca. 21 minutes

First Performance: Philadelphia –February 25, 1931

Suite from “Surf and Seaweed”

suite derived from film score

16 minutes

First Performance: New York City, film screening –March 15, 1931

This is the Garden

Cantata

Text by Marc Blitzstein

ca. 30 minutes

First Performance: New York, Carnegie Hall, Interracial Fellowship Chorus; Harold Aks, conductor –May 3, 1957

The Threepenny Opera

Play with music

By Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht in collaboration with Elisabeth Hauptmann, after John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera

English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein

full evening

First Performance: New York City, Theater de Lys, Carmen Capalbo, dir., Samuel Matlowsky, cond. –March 10, 1954

Triple-Sec

one-act opera

Text by Ronald Jeans

15 minutes

First Performance: Philadelphia, Bellevue-Stratford ballroom –May 6, 1929

Twelve Whitman Songs

settings of twelve poems by Walt Whitman

Marc Blitzstein Songbook, Vol. I, II, III

songbook compilation of selected and previously unpublished songs.

Edited by Leonard Lehrman

Completed Works & Unpublished/Unfinished Works

At the time of his unexpected and tragic death in 1964, much of Blitzstein’s work was left unfinished and unpublished, leaving behind a legacy that has been largely overlooked in the ensuing decades. There are many such works not currently available for public performance. Learn more about these works.