The women are naked apart from their drapery, fallen to their legs; the two men are dressed in contemporary 16th century Venetian costume.

[11] Christiane Joost-Gaugier suggests that the painting's landscape was a fictional setting inspired by Virgil's Eclogues, specifically numbers three and eight.

[11] The painting's landscape details suggest this particular epilogue because the Shepard's appearance with bagpipes alludes to a possible scene depicting a singing contest of Theocritus from one of Horace's Odes or Virgil's Eclogues (3,7).

[11] The subject was perhaps an allegory of poetry and music; the two women could be an imaginary apparition representing ideal beauty, stemming from the two men's fantasy and inspiration.

Of the two playing men, the one with the lute would represent the exalted lyric poetry, the other being an ordinary lyricist, according to Aristotle's distinction in his Poetics.

Another interpretation suggests that the painting evokes the natural world's four elements (water, fire, earth, and air) and their harmonic relationship.

[12] Another theory is that this painting's subject is an allegorical interpretation of Theocritus's poem about Daphnis, a shepherd thought to be the pastoral poetry founder.

[2] Philipp Fehl also proposes that this painting symbolizes Ludovico Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, an extremely popular epic poem in the early 16th century.

[9] This specific painting's allegory on love's discourse was believed to be originating from Pietro Bembo's poetic musing on desire, such as his poem The Asolani.

The concept of "desire" depicted in art was a heated debate in the 16th century, as seen in writings such as Leonardo da Vinci's Trattato della pittura.

[9] Art Historian Ross Kilpatrick suggests that two ancient literature texts, Horace's Epistles and Propertius's Elegy, were the significant pieces of inspiration behind this painting.

[13] Also according to Fehl, the closest poetic work that matches this painting is William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (obviously, entirely unknown to Titian, as it was written much later) .

[14] Elhanian Motzkin identifies the nude female figure on the left as Inspiration and the right to be Euterpe, the Greek muse of music.

[4] There are multiple uncertain issues in this painting, the most prominent being the female figure's inclusion on the left pouring water out of a clear jug into a well.

[11] The painting has also been attributed to Palma the Elder, Sebastiano del Piombo, Domenico Mancini, and Giovanni Bellini.

[15][2] These theories, however, are not as common as the attribution to Titian or Giorgione due to a lack of historical evidence and restoration efforts.

The theory of attribution to Domenico Mancini has gained ground as contextual evidence and historical documents have been analyzed.

A work known to have been painted by Giorgione, The Tempest, is referenced in Pastoral Concert through the use of colored hosiery worn by the male subjects, a symbol of Compagnie della Calza, an elite patrician order of young men.

[2] A theory postulated by Charles Hope, and endorsed by Holberton,[17] suggests that the author of the painting is Domenico Mancini, a contemporary painter and follower of Giorgione and Titian.

Mancini's Lendinara Cathedral altarpiece is stylistically similar to Pastoral Concert, as well as his Madonna with Saints Francis and Roch.

His painting Madonna with Saints Francis and Roch takes significant cues from Giovanni Bellini's San Zaccaria Altarpiece.

[19][3] When the English royal collections were dispersed following the revolution of 1649, the painting was sold at auction by the Commonwealth of England to the German banker and art collector, Eberhard Jabach.

[12] Dante Gabriel Rossetti wrote a poem titled A Venetian Pastoral, by Giorgione, in the Louvre, which was explicitly written about this painting.

[21] The three seated figures in the painting were cut and pasted into the sleeve of the 1983 Electric Light Orchestra album Secret Messages.