Advent Calendar – 2nd December – Pastoral Symphony
Merry Christmas!
Danielle and Dave’s Advent Calendar, 2021
2nd December, 2021
‘Pastoral Symphony’ from ‘Messiah’
George Frideric Handel (1685 – 1759)
Because when I was at school we performed Handel’s ‘Messiah’ every other Easter, I came to associate the music more with the Passion than the Nativity.
Both, however, form part of the story of Jesus told in this oratorio. The Pastoral Symphony is found in Part One of the oratorio which concentrates on the prophecy of the Messiah to come and His actual Nativity and separates His birth from the subsequent arrival of the shepherds.
As such, the music is called Pastoral because it evokes the setting where the shepherds are out in the countryside tending their flocks. Another subtitle which is sometimes used for the movement is Pifa. I have to say that when I was recording this I was keenly aware of how the melodic lines, played here on the harp, sounded like light rustic early bagpipe-like double reed instruments calling and echoing to each other across the valleys. The melodic fragments almost seem improvisatory, and are imitated from one to another.
The melody changes its contours over a bass line which changes pitch much less often – in other words like the long held drone notes of a bagpipe , zampogna or pifa. At the time Italian shepherd bagpipers of this sort called pifferai walked the streets of Rome with instruments made from the skin of their animals – either sheep or goat.
Recorded on David Concert Harp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_Part_I