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A Consideration of Marc Blitzstein’s Choral Opera, The Condemned (1932)

23 Marc Blitzstein, “Tame Season in New York,” Modern Music essay.
9:2 (Jan-Feb 1932), 79. 27 Pollack, Marc Blitzstein, 137
24 Eva Goldbeck’s (EG) journals document this period in great 28 This moment again calls to mind the third movement of
detail. Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms.
25 Marc Blitzstein, music for The Condemned, Marc Blitzstein 29 Part of the Nadia Boulanger Collection at Harvard
Papers, microfilm, R44F164-210 (early piano version), University.

R44F211-270 (incomplete piano-vocal transcription and 30 Nadia Boulanger, letter to Marc Blitzstein, 31 July 1932.
various musical sketches), R44F271-334 (incomplete 31 Quoted in Pollack, Marc Blitzstein, 106, also see 140.
conductor’s score draft), R44F335-547 (conductor’s score 32 Quoted in Pollack, Marc Blitzstein, 139.
#1), and R44F548-746 (conductor’s score #2). 33 MB, letter to JBD, 29 October 1932 (R2#1227).
26 Blitzstein’s production notes are referenced here. For more 34 MB, telegram to EG, 29 September 1932. A reference to
about Brecht and Meyerhold’s theatrical innovations, see Vsevolod Meyerhold, the Russian theater empresario.
Katherine Bliss Eaton, The Theater of Meyerhold and Brecht, 35 MB, letter to JBD, 12 October 1932.
Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies, ed. Joseph 36 G. M. Beckett, letter to MB, 11 January 1935. Pollack notes
Donohue, no. 19 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, the work was the subject of derision in the BBC offi ces.
1985), 9. Brecht’s theories with regard to representing 37 EG, essay on Marc Blitzstein’s music, n.d. Sadly, Eva would
the Marxian materialist dialectic through dramatic means die shortly after Blitzstein fi nished The Condemned and

may also have influenced Blitzstein’s decision to illustrate would not see the success of The Cradle Will Rock.
the individual as a choir, a point taken up earlier in this

Call for Applications for
National Repertoire and Resources Chairs
Repertoire
&
Resources
National Repertoire and Resources Chair positions will be
COMMITTEE
open in the areas of Vocal Jazz, Community Choirs and
College and University. If you are interested in serving
ACDA members and the community in these positions,
please submit your resumé and a one-page vision statement to
Gretchen Harrison, National Chairperson for Repertoire and
Resources at gharrison.jhms@gmail.com by Friday, May 28,

2021.

Position expectations are detailed in the link:

https://tinyurl.com/37xpkset

CHORAL JOURNAL June/July 2021 Volume 61 Number 11 49