Francesco Manfredini: Concerto Grosso op. 3, no. 12 “Pastorale per il santissimo natale”
Concerto Grosso op. 3, no. 12 “Pastorale per il santissimo natale”
Francesco Manfredini (1684-1762)
2 solo violins, strings, continuo
First published 1718.
I. Pastorale: Largo
II. Largo
III. Allegro
One Christmas custom that long captured the imagination of composers was that of the pifferari. As Christmas approached, these bands of itinerant musicians descended on Rome from the Abruzzi mountains in their distinctive large brown coats and pointed hats, playing zampogne (bagpipes) and pifferi (a type of folk oboe). They spent the Advent season on the city streets, performing devoutly in front of portraits of the Virgin Mary. Hector Berlioz was entranced by this “remnant of antiquity”, writing that they were “imbued with a certain savage mystique… The bagpipe, assisted by a large piffero on the bass, plays a harmony of two or three notes, over which a medium piffero plays the melody. Then, above all this, two short little pifferi, played by children between 12 and 15, play trills and cadences, bathing the rustic song with a shower of bizarre ornaments.” Evocative of the shepherds present at the birth of Christ, the pifferari appear in countless works of art and music.
One composer inspired by these folk musicians was Francesco Manfredini. His “Pastorale for Holiest Christmas” was written as a concerto grosso, a new musical form which had developed within the previous decades. The first movement, a siciliano (a slow dance in triple time featuring dotted rhythms and associated with pastoral scenes), brings to mind images of the shepherds watching their flocks by night outside Bethlehem— perhaps the most popular aspect of the Christmas story in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The second movement features a tranquil melody of descending arpeggios in a minor key. It segues directly to the third movement, which portrays a pifferari performance. The orchestral strings imitate zampogne in their simple harmonic support as the soloists perform the trills and ornaments characteristic of the higher pifferi.
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