A history of human flight, the symphony uses music that the United States Army Air Forces, in which Blitzstein served during the World War II, originally commissioned for use in film.
Marc Blitzstein began the war as a member of the U.S. Eighth Army Air Force's film division in London, England, working as a composer, scriptwriter, and translator.
The original film project did not come to fruition and Blitzstein, who composed his score for a large orchestra and male chorus, did not have the needed manpower for a wartime concert.
[1][2] The New York Times reported that the audience received The Airborne Symphony with enthusiasm at its world premiere, and called the performance "remarkably sure, brilliant and dramatically eloquent.
The Airborne Symphony has passages of stunning musicality, but is also judged as a work of brazen propaganda with limited performing value in modern times.
[3] Bernstein recorded the work with the New York Philharmonic in 1966, with Welles as narrator, tenor Andrea Velis as soloist, and William Jonson conducting the Choral Art Society.