Pastorale

In Baroque music, a pastorale is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of pifferari, players of the traditional Italian bagpipe (zampogna) and reed pipe (piffero).

Scarlatti wrote some examples in his keyboard sonatas, and many other composers in the transition between the baroque and classical eras, particularly French (Marc-Antoine Charpentier, 8 sets, H.479, H.482, H.483, H.484, H.485, H.486, H.492, H.493), used this technique.

The Italian pastorale Tu scendi dalle stelle, sometimes called "Carol of the Bagpipers" (Canzone d'i zampognari), is a widely popular Christmas carol by St. Alfonso Liguori, and Pietro Yon's Gesù bambino is another.

The Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's song collection Fredman's Epistles contain several pastorales, including Liksom en Herdinna, högtids klädd (Like a Shepherdess, Solemnly Dressed), which begins with a near-paraphrase of the start of Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux's French guide to the construction of pastoral verse.

The pastorale can be played by a solo zampogna player, sometimes also accompanied by the piffero (also commonly called a ciaramella, pipita, or bifera), which is a primitive key-less, double-reed, oboe-type instrument.