Lindbergh's Flight

When Charles Augustus Lindbergh flew the Atlantic. 40 songs were promptly written about him in the U. S. Some were serious, some slapstick, all packed with platitudes. "Lucky Lindy" and "Lindbergh, the Eagle of the U. S. A." were most popular but they were soon forgotten. It was a German importation on the Lindbergh theme which Conductor Leopold Stokowski considered worthy of two Philadelphia orchestra performances in Philadelphia last week. Perhaps because it was composed expressly for radio performance,*Stokowski chose to give it in the last of four nationwide broadcasts sponsored by the Philadelphia (Philco) Storage Battery Co.

Whatever its merit, the German Lindbergh saga is more pretentious, more quaintly imaginative than anything done on the same subject in the U. S. It is the collaboration of two young moderns --Librettist Bert Brecht, called "The German Kipling" because his verse is of the vigorous, ballad type, and Composer Kurt Weill. Composer Weill won notoriety if faint praise last year for his opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, a gruesome piece set in an imaginary U. S. Sodom where money is the gluttonish god. Lindbergh's Flight makes the same attempt at realism but there is a fundamental difference. Weill & Brecht did it in a comparatively high-minded mood. They meant to exalt Lindbergh in the same epic style which the ancients used to exalt their heroes. Their intention was not to shock seasonsed concertgoers but to tell the deed "in terms intelligible to school children or to students at preparatory schools."

Most U. S. school children would probably find the Brecht-Weill opus perplexing. The pattern is complex: Lindbergh's Flight is a cantata for orchestra, chorus and soloists. Lindbergh, represented by a tenor, describes himself, his preparations, his emotions during the flight, in a pompous, swaggering manner quite unlike the popular U. S. idea of him. The chorus exhorts him as he starts, exalts him in a hymnlike way at the finish. During the flight a baritone radios all ships to watch out for him. A bass solo, with the smoothest music in the cantata, urges him to sleep. The chorus takes turns representing the S. S. Empress of Scotland, the fog and ice which beset Lindbergh during the night, the optimism of Americans, the pessimism of the French due to their recent loss of Nungesser, the jubilation when the plane is sighted over Le Bourget flying field.

Most U. S. school children would be hard-put to get much meaning out of Composer Weill's terse, telegraphic music which echoes the cacaphonies of Schonberg and Hindemith, or to sing for themselves the difficult cross-grained choruses which the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia managed so expertly last week. The words, however, are simple enough for the youngest intelligence. Excerpts from Composer George Antheil's translation, modified slightly for last week's performances:

"They christened me Charles Lindbergh. And I am just 25 years old. My grandfather was Swedish, and I am an American. And this aeroplane is the pick of the whole lot. It flies 210 kilometres an hour! Its name is 'The Spirit of St. Louis.' The Ryan Aeroplane Works in San Diego made it up for me in 60 days."

"Here is the ship Empress of Scotland: Latitude 49 degrees, 20 minutes; Longitude 34 degrees, 78 minutes. Some time ago we heard above us the roar of an aeroplane motor at a great elevation. . . . It seems quite possible this this was your flier in his aeroplane called 'The Spirit of St. Louis.' "

"Sleep, Charlie, the strenuous night is past. The storm is over. Sleep only, Charlie. The wind will carry you through . . . Hand over your trusty controls."

Lindbergh to his motor: "Now it is not much further, and we must pull ourselves together, we two. Have you enough oil? Do you think you need more gasoline? ... All O. K? See, the ice is all gone; . . . the blinding fog is my special worry, not yours. ... It is not much further. Here comes Ireland, and then Paris. Will we really make it, we two?"

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