[1] He won national attention in 1937 when his pro-union musical The Cradle Will Rock, directed by Orson Welles, was shut down by the Works Progress Administration.

Blitzstein also composed music for films, such as Surf and Seaweed (1931) and The Spanish Earth (1937), and he contributed two songs to the original 1960 production of Hellman's play Toys in the Attic.

Blitzstein's musical gifts were apparent at an early age; he had performed a Mozart piano concerto by the time he was seven.

Despite his later political beliefs, he was, in the early years of his career, a self-proclaimed and unrepentant artistic snob, who firmly believed that true art was only for the intellectual elite.

He was vociferous in denouncing composers—in particular Respighi, Ravel, and Kurt Weill—who, he felt, debased their standards to reach a wider public.

In the film, Blitzstein (played by Hank Azaria) is portrayed as gaining inspiration through ghostly appearances by his idol Brecht and his late anorexic wife.

Both Tales of Malamud and Sacco and Vanzetti were completed posthumously, with the approval of Blitzstein's estate, by composer Leonard Lehrman.

He was recalled for a further public session, but after a day sitting anxiously in a waiting room he was not called to testify.