Marc Blitzstein - selected bibliography

Bernstein, Leonard.  _Findings_. London:  MacDonald & Co., 1982.

Blitzstein, Marc.  _The Cradle Will Rock:  A Play in Music_.  
New York: Random House, 1938.
The published version of the play in music with commentary by Orson 
Welles and Archibald MacLeish.

Blitzstein, Marc.  _Regina:  An Opera_.  New York:  Chappell & 
Company, Inc., 1954. Piano and vocal score.

Blitzstein, Marc.  _Sacco and Vanzetti_.  Wisconsin Center for 
Theatre Research, State Historical Society of Wisconsin: 1959.
Piano and vocal score.  Collection of the composer's sketches for 
the opera, found and compiled after his death.

Briggs, John.  _Leonard Bernstein: The Man, His Work, and His World_. 
New York: The World Publishing Company, 1961.
A Bernstein biography with more anecdotes and less un-editorialized 
facts than those written after Bernstein's death.

Burton, Humphrey.  _Leonard Bernstein_.  London:  Anchor, 1994.
A biography with reference to the relationship between Blitzstein and 
Bernstein.

Callow, Simon.  _Orson Welles:  The Road to Xanadu_.  London:  Penguin, 
1995.

Copland, Aaron.  _The New Music_.  New York:  W.W. Norton, 1969.
Originally published in the 1940s.  Comments on how Blitzstein is a 
leader in the movement towards composing a "new" and "American" music.

Davis, Christopher.  _The Sun in Mid-Career_.  New York:  Harper & Row, 
1975.
A fictional book loosely based on the life and career of the author's 
uncle, Marc Blitzstein.

Dietz, Robert James.  "The Operatic Style of Marc Blitzstein in the 
American 'Agit-Prop' Era" (diss., The University of Iowa, 1970). 
Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1986. 
The dissertation that led to a revival of Blitzstein's works and an 
interest in his life in the 80s and 90s.  It is one of the leading 
publications on information about Blitzstein's life and his 'agit-pop' 
works:  The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer and I've Got the Tune.

Gordon, Eric.  _Mark the Music:  The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein_.  
New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.
THE leading source on Blitzstein.  To date, this biography is the most 
comprehensive, with details from his day to day life through his and 
others' memoirs as well as a list of works.  Most of the publications 
about Blitzstein published after this time use _Mark the Music_ as their 
primary source of information.

Goss, Madeleine.  _Modern Music-Makers, Contemporary American Composers_.
 New York:  Dutton, 1952.

Gruen, John.  _Close-up_.  New York:  Viking Press, 1968.

Kendall, Alan.  _The Tender Tyrant, Nadia Boulanger:  A Life Devoted to 
Music (a Biography)_.  Wilton, Connecticut:  Lyceum Books, 1976.
A biography on Nadia Boulanger.  A seemingly incorrect source for 
information on Blitzstein and his studies with Boulanger.

Kozlenko, William.  _The Best Short Plays of the Social Theatre_.  New 
York: Random House, 1939.
Another printing of The Cradle Will Rock.

Lehrman, Leonard, ed.  _The Marc Blitzstein Songbook_.  Boosey and 
Hawkes, 1999.
The first collection of published Blitzstein songs.  Compiled by two of 
his nephews with notes supplied by themselves and the editor.  Lehrman 
also finished some of Blitzstein's unfinished works for this publication.

Lehrman, Leonard, ed.  _The Marc Blitzstein Songbook: Volume Two_.  
Boosey and Hawkes, 2001.
Similar to the first songbook, only containing songs that had been more 
difficult to attain.  Also more information about each song and or show.

Lehrman, Leonard Jordan.  _A Musical Analysis of Idiots First:  A One-Act 
Opera Based on a Story by Bernard Malamud, Libretto by Marc Blitzstein, 
Music Begun by Marc Blitzstein_.  Ithaca, New York:  1975.

Mellers, Wilfred.  _Music in a New Found Land:  Themes and Developments 
in the History of American Music_.  New York:  Alfred A. Knopf, 1965.

_Modern Music:  Two Decades in Review_.  New York:  League of Composers, 
1943.

O'Connor, Patrick.  "Blitzstein, Hellman and Regina."  Regina liner 
notes: Scottish Opera Orchestra and Chorus, 1992.
Detailed information about the opera, some biographical information on 
Blitzstein.  Includes a chronology of his life and works.

Peyser, Joan.  _Bernstein:  A Biography_.  New York:  Billboard Books, 
1998.
A biography on Bernstein with more accurate information about Blitzstein.

Peyser, Joan.  _The Troubled Time of Marc Blitzstein_.  New York? 
(Detached from Columbia University Forum, 1966):  1956.
A reprinted article that led to a decline in popularity of Blitzstein's 
music in the fifties and sixties.

Robbins, Tim.  _The Cradle Will Rock:  The Movie and the Movement_.  
Newmarket Press:  1999.
Writings by one of the writers and producers on the movie of the same 
title.

Rorem, Ned.  _A Ned Rorem Reader_.  New Haven:  Yale University Press, 
2001.

Rosenstiel, Leonie.  _Nadia Boulanger:  A Life in Music_.  New York:  
W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.
A more hard-edged biography of Boulanger than the Kendall.

Secrest, Meryle.  _Leonard Bernstein:  A Life_.  New York:  Alfred A. 
Knopf, 1994.
Another comprehensive and detailed biography from a well known biographer 
in the field of music and theatre.

Sherman, Jason.  _It's All True_.  Toronto:  Playwrights Canada Press, 
2000.
A play loosely based on the legendary opening of The Cradle Will Rock.

Spycket, Jerome.  _Nadia Boulanger_.  New York:  Pendragon Press, 1992.
A biography that includes pictures.

5/03