pastoral

thumb|upright=1.5|Sheet music for Carl Michael Bellman's [[Fredman's Epistle 80, Liksom en Herdinna, högtids klädd, one of several pastorales in the 1790 collection]] Pastorale refers to something of a pastoral nature in music, whether in form or in mood.

In Baroque music, a pastorale is a movement of a melody in thirds over a drone bass, recalling the Christmas music of pifferari, players of the traditional Italian bagpipe (zampogna) and reed pipe (piffero). Pastorales are generally in or or metre, at a moderate tempo. They resemble a slowed-down version of a tarantella, encompassing many of the same rhythms and melodic phrases.