The coming of Christmas brings out a desire for a specific sound more rightly associated with summer: the pastoral music of shepherds. The word “pastoral” goes back to the Latin verb pascere (to lead to pasture, set to grazing, or cause to eat). From pascere we also make the journey to the nouns pastor and pasture.
In Western Classical music, a pastoral style of music developed out of Renaissance madrigals and became standard in vocal and instrumental music during the period we call the Baroque. Characterized by flutes and double reeds (oboe, bassoon, and their ancestors), pastoral music rose to artistic heights at the hands of composers like Bach and Handel. Our ears warm easily to its rhythmic patterns cast in a triple or undulating pulse, quiet dynamics, and simple texture where the melody floats above simple harmonies or a sustained note called a drone.
The pastoral sound in Western music does not inevitably refer to Christmas. To take one example, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, known as the “Pastoral Symphony,” evokes the depth of summer. But pastoral music does find an enthusiastic audience at this season of the year. Consider two iconic examples from Handel’s Messiah: the delicate interlude called Pastoral Symphony (shaped primarily by strings), and the irresistible aria for alto “He Shall Feed His Flock.” My absolute favorite example of pastoral beauty would be the hypnotic opening of Gian-Carlo Menotti’s tender opera Amahl and the Night Visitor, where Amahl, a shepherd boy, plays his simple pipe beneath the Star that guides the Wise Men.
Other pastoral works charming us at Christmastime include Archaneglo Corelli’s Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6, no. 8 (the “Christmas Concerto”), Respighi’s Lauds to the Nativity (featured a few days ago), and many traditional tunes like The Coventry Carol, Greensleeves, and Good Christian Men, Rejoice.
Layers of romanticized meanings have been heaped upon pastoral themes in art, music, and literature, particularly in the Enlightenment when the aesthetic concept of “the natural” became trendy and fascinating to artists and the aristocrats sponsoring their art. Little of what these works depicted or described had anything to do with the reality of working as a shepherd. A shepherd’s job is hardly charming.
Guarding flocks entails protecting them from wolves, lions, coyotes, bobcats, poisonous snakes, and whatever else wants to kill the herd. It means forcing stubborn or frightened animals to move where they don’t want to go, doctoring the wounded, intervening in distressed birthings, and searching desperately to find water and forage. It requires enduring the lash of rain, wind, and snow, surviving long cold nights and hot boring days. It also means accepting significant periods of isolation.
Music-making is one of the few things able to pierce a shepherd’s isolation and serve as a balm for the other privations. Worded another way, in the grueling, low-paid profession of shepherding, it’s nice to have some music around.
The actual instruments shepherds have had at their disposal are remarkably consistent across time. Pipes must be simple to make, durable, unaffected by the elements, and easy to play (shepherds don’t receive formal training in music). Natural pipes from reeds, cane, or wood with open finger holes similar to today’s recorder give us some idea, but many pipes would have been far more rustic. Some were enhanced by a reed placed in a mouthpiece or tucked into the body of the instrument to buzz the sound, make it louder, more pungent, even acerbic.
A shepherd isolated in the fields would take any instrument at hand and play whatever popular songs and dance tunes he knew, as well as improvising new melodies. Sometimes the music was soothing (including for the flocks). But there had to have been times when frustration and despair were dissipated through an aggressive session of music-making.
Of course, none of this music was ever written down, and we will never know for sure how it really sounded. Even so, the animals must have taken some comfort from it, recognizing that it meant that their protector was at hand.
When Jesus proclaimed himself the Good Shepherd, he added that his sheep know and listen to his voice. So this Christmas as you read about shepherds watching their flocks by night, remember that they signify loyalty and strength, and imagine if you can the sound of their music.
