This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll highlight a single, patriotic work: Marc Blitzstein’s “Airborne Symphony.” Written on a commission from the U.S. Army while Blitzstein was serving in its Air Force, the work traces the evolution of flight from its conception in theory to its use in modern warfare.

The work was envisaged by the composer as a big symphony on the theme of “the sacred struggle of airborne free men of the world… to crush the monstrous fascist obstructionist in their path.”

Blitzstein began the work in 1943, at the height of World War II. It would not be completed until after the war, in 1946. Leonard Bernstein conducted the premiere virtually while the ink was still wet on the page. He recorded it twice. We’ll be listening to the second of the two recordings, from 1966, with Orson Welles as the narrator, vocal soloists, the New York Philharmonic, and the men of the Choral Arts Society.

Join me for this forgotten relic of WWII – “Flight of Fancy” – tonight at 10 EDT on WWFM – The Classical Network; or listen to it later as a webcast at http://www.wwfm.org/