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It occurs to me to ascribe a Christmas narrative to the Pastorale in F, BWV 590 (PDF score) by Johann Sebastian Bach.

As far as we know, Bach did not have an overt Christmas narrative in mind when writing this piece. But for modern audiences, hearing this piece at Christmastime, it is not too much of a stretch to lay out a narrative approach to listening to (and perhaps performing this piece).

Assigning extra-musical content to a non-programmatic piece of music is something organists like to do when they think too much about a single piece of music. I remember Harold Vogel doing this to Sweelinck once. Now it's my turn.

As a starting point, the Pastorale itself, as a musical genre, connects to an idealized lifestyle of shepherds. Even for J. S. Bach, the Pastorale had this connection: the Sinfonia to Part II of Bach's Christmas Oratorio is a Pastorale that "sets the stage" for the tenor recitative of Luke 2:8-9 that follows.

And so, we can safely begin our narrative for Bach Pastorale, BWV 590, with the shepherds here also.

Bach’s Pastorale in F has four movements, none with tempo markings. Bach may have even conceived of the first movement as a standalone work (or simply written it significantly before the successive movements), but the final cadence, in A minor, makes the idea of a single-movement Pastorale difficult. For a short work of only 37 bars, a cadence in an unrelated key strongly suggests one or more additional movements that feed off of this unresolved tension.

Movement 1: Meet the Shepherds

The new key of A Major is the kind of shimmering in the air, or perhaps “disturbance in the Force”, if you will, that the shepherds sense that herald the angel's arrival.

This movement does not return to its starting key; it ends with an A minor chord, the vi chord in our starting key of F Major.

And so it begins. The shepherds we just met are now in the presence of an angel, and they are "sore afraid”.

Movement 2: Fear Not

The second movement focuses on two words from the tenth verse of Luke Chapter 2: “Fear not”.

This gentle, bucolic writing is meant to calm the shepherds’ anxiety at the end of movement one. The A minor finale of the previous movement has its answer in its relative, C Major.

The intimate quality of this movement is best conveyed through performance on a single stop. A solo four-foot stop is not out of place here.

Movement 3: Angel Aria

We then duck into a parallel minor for an aria. Where the previous movement serves to calm the shepherds down, this movement serves to inform them and ultimately spur them to action.

The texture here lends itself to playing on two manuals: a solo voice in the right hand and a softer accompanimental texture in the left.

This aria texture allows the angel to announce, explain, and invite. The content could be that which is found in Luke 2:10-12. The angel’s explanation of the sign that the shepherds will find implies an invitation for them to get up and see for themselves.

Movement 4: Dance Party

After the monologue, this solitary angel is joined by their compatriots, and the music that they employ is a dance that the shepherds understand: a gigue. It is the dance of “Glory to God in the highest” told angelically (a fugue) and in the vernacular of their audience (a gigue). It is a moment when heaven and earth mingle, and the angels’ song takes on particular sonic flesh for the shepherds.

Labels: Bach, Christmas