Earthbound

An 85-voice men's chorus sang: Though they had wings on the brain, They all went flat on their nose. . . . Narrator Orson Welles reverently intoned: "Wait, I thought I heard a child crying. . . ."

The words were the kind of stuff that Norman Corwin writes--sometimes graphic, frequently inflated. In the background, Leonard Bernstein's New York City Symphony played music that had more than a touch of Shostakovich. It was the premiere of The Airborne Symphony, Marc (The Cradle Will Rock) Blitzstein's 50-minute history of aviation for orchestra, chorus, speaker and soloists.

He wrote The Airborne in London in 1943, on assignment from the Eighth Air Force. When it was over, Composer Blitzstein jumped to the stage and was embraced by Mr. Welles. The audience, in Manhattan's municipally owned City Center last week, gave it what Manhattan music critics nervously (and somewhat grudgingly) referred to as an ovation. Consensus of the critics: as a symphony, The Airborne hardly got off the ground.

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