Adam and the Creatures, a Morality with Music, for Narrators, SATB Chorus, Organ, andPercussion by Thomas PitfieldReview by: Elizabeth DavidsonNotes, Second Series, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Mar., 1973), p. 564Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/896486 .

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nition. However, there are other sections in the work that are surprisingly triadic. An example is the section in which the music for each chorus taken separately is a series of major triads. When the chairs are combined, the level of disso- nance is high due to the superimposition of triads at the distance of a major second.

Performance difficulties are less formid- able than one inight assume from hearing

the work. The free passages are easy to perform but create a very complicated texture. Most initial pitch cues are help- fully given in the brass parts. We can be grateful that Bedford has followed his earlier choral work, Two Poems for Chlorus (on Patchen texts), with another no less brilliant work.

WILLIAM WELLS Carleton College

CHILDREN'S MUSIC Thomas Pitfield: Adam and the Crea- tures, a Morality with Music, for Nar- rators, SATB Chorus, Organ, and Per- cussion. New York: Sam Fox Publ. Co., 1972. [Vocal score, 56 p., $3.50; libretto, with chorus part, 24 p., $.75]

This is an adaptable musical play for church audiences of all ages. To the ad- vantage of the production, children por- tray animals (a popular assignment to the young), and hymn singing at the con- clusion gives an opportunity for audience participation.

Most of the music, in variation form, is based on the melody familiar as "All Creatures of Our God and King," from the Colner Gesangbuch of 1623. However, the composer achieves unity at the expense of freshness-so much so that the strong new hymn tune introduced before the final scene is welcome, indeed. Overuse is also made of the 4-3 suspension at ca- dences.

Pitfield contrasts a predominantly simple polyphonic organ style with occasional chordal dissonance, usually achieved by the chromatic alteration of familiar material or through bitonality. Except for some cuteness, the organ part is appropriate. The choral writing con- sisting of vocalise for background music as well as unison or four-part hymn set- tings, is effectively simple.

The composer, in the morality play tradition, has interspersed Biblical text from the Creation story with his own prose. A consistent and original poetic style would have suffered less in this juxtaposition than the quasi-Biblical and idiomatic English that appears.

Unless unusual lighting effects are avail- able, some color in the costuming would seem preferable to the limited black and white scheme suggested in the helpful "Note on Production."

ELIZABETH DAVIDSON University of California at Berkeley

Thomas Fredrickson: Four for Two, for Cello and Bass [Score, 6 p., $1.00]; Ralph Shapey: Three Concert Pieces for Young String Players: March, Song, Dance for Violin, Viola, Cello, Percus- sion [Score, 16 p., and parts, $4.00]; Seymour Shifrin: Lullaby for Solo Vio- lin; Play for the Young, for Violin and Cello; Duettino for Violin and Piano [Score, 7 p., $1.00]; Alan Shulman: Theme and Variations for Two Violins or Violin and Viola; Duet for Violin and Viola or Violin and Cello; Study in Fifths for Violin, Viola, and Cello [Score, 11 p., $1.50]; Richard Wernick: Peter's March, for Two Violins: A Mu- sical Game of Tag, for Two Violins; You Can't Catch Me, for Three Violins [Score, 6 p., $1.00] (New Directions for Strings, ed. by Margaret Farrish.) Bryn Mawr, Penn.: Theodore Presser, 1972.

The continuing serviceability of early- twentieth-century Gebrauchsmusik (by Bart6k and Hindemith in particular) both as teaching materials for the child and performance repertoire for the profes- sional, has not inspired similarly-intended pieces by serious composers of the post neo-classical period (although, in fact, a variety of works by the Cage school,

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