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.
See Examples For:
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
But unlike that idyllic pastorale — or even Tero Saarinen’s more recent, wonderful dance “Borrowed Light” — “Angel Reapers” offers a layered, conflicted, even tortured look at its subject.
From New York Times ● Nov. 27, 2011
Shulgin and the Joiner's Arms further essay Hot Horizons' brand of electronic pastorale.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 7, 2011
The Italian imagination was not careful to differentiate between field and forest: favola boschereccia was used synonymously with commedia pastorale; drammi dei boschi is a term which covers the whole of the pastoral drama.
From Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration Stage in England by Greg, Walter W.
Naseem listened to the same songs, watched the same videos and simply asserted himself, identities be damned, into Bruce’s empathetic pastorales.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2021
“Including 55 serious operas, 6 cantatas, 53 comic operas, 17 operettas, 6 sing-spiele, 4 ballets, 4 vaudevilles, 2 oratorios, one each of fares, pastorales, masques, ballads and buffas.”
From New York Times ● Sep. 1, 2017
Actually, Thomas, who has written pastorales as convincing and sweet as a haystack, probably never shot a bird, rode a horse, caught a fish.
From Time Magazine Archive
He seems to have out-Schoenberged Schoenberg in his little piano pieces bearing the alluring titles of Embryons desséchés, preludes and pastorales.
From Ivory Apes and Peacocks by Huneker, James
Just why these arbitrary pastorales should suggest meads and syrinxes, and dancing shepherds, it would be hard to tell.
Rapin's Discourse of Pastorals was first published in Latin, with his eclogues, under the title: Eclogae, cum dissertatione de carmine pastorali.
From De Carmine Pastorali (1684) by Congleton, J. E. (James Edmund)
Among the Latin works published outside of the Society, see "Tractatus de officio pastorali," ed.
From A Literary History of the English People From the Origins to the Renaissance by Jusserand, Jean Jules
King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the treatise De cura pastorali of Pope Gregory the Great, being the copy sent by the King to Werfrith, Bishop of Worcester.
From Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598-A.D. 1867 With a Preliminary Notice of the earlier Library founded in the Fourteenth Century by Macray, William Dunn
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.
