pastorale
Americannoun
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an opera, cantata, or the like, with a pastoral subject.
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a piece of music suggestive of pastoral life.
noun
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a composition evocative of rural life, characterized by moderate compound duple or quadruple time and sometimes a droning accompaniment
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a musical play based on a rustic story, popular during the 16th century
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of pastorale
1715–25; < Italian, noun use of pastorale pastoral
Explanation
A pastorale is a piece of music that makes the listener think of simple, old-fashioned days or of life in the country. Some pastorales have a rural subject, while others use familiar musical themes to evoke this feeling. A true pastorale is a simple opera that takes place in the countryside or on a farm. Other musical pastorales recall earlier forms of music and tend to be very slow, with droning bass notes. Baroque pastorales include parts of Handel's "Messiah" and a piece by Bach called "Pastorale." The word comes from pastoral, originally "pertaining to shepherds," from the Latin pastoralis, "of herdsmen."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The scene was a vibrant pastorale, rendered in thousands of shimmering sequins and beads that filled a nine-foot-wide canvas with a red tasseled border.
From New York Times • Jan. 25, 2023
He scored the opening scenes, which paint a portrait of the vibrant, thriving Dahomey village, with African pastorale — bouncing a string orchestra along with a gentle groove on regional instruments including kalimba and kora.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 17, 2022
With the Friends’ full cooperation, he helped carry “The Wheel” far from its usual country-ish territory, toward a kind of extraterrestrial pastorale with glimmers of Terry Riley’s Minimalism and Miles Davis’s “In a Silent Way.”
From New York Times • Apr. 16, 2014
The theme, McGregor says, is anti-war, echoing Tippett's pacifism, and will align the English pastorale of the music with a desolate wasteland of Gerrard's creation, based on an army-training area in Kenya.
From The Guardian • Jan. 2, 2011
Rimsky-Korsakoff, a modern Russian composer, has given us in his symphony "Antar" a tone picture of this Arabian Negro's life that opens and closes with an atmospheric eastern pastorale of great beauty.
From The Journal of Negro History, Volume 1, January 1916 by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
