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In a rustic, shepherd-like manner. As a title, Pastorale names a movement in that style, typically in 6/8 or 12/8 over drone-like pedal notes.
As a direction it appears above the staff, often with dolce, at the start of the passage it colours; as a title, Pastorale heads a whole movement.
The pastoral is one of music’s oldest topics: drones and pedal points, compound metre, parallel thirds, simple tunes evoking shepherds’ pipes, as in the Pifa of Handel’s Messiah. Use the word as a direction when that peaceful, rustic character should colour the playing, and let the writing supply the pastoral features.
Corelli, Concerto Grosso in G minor, Op. 6 No. 8 (“Christmas Concerto”): the closing movement is the “Pastorale ad libitum”, in 12/8 over long pedal notes.
Pastorale is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
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