Alongside festive pieces with trumpet, pastorals are without doubt the most common and popular form of baroque Christmas instrumental music. They depict the adoration of the shepherds, for which composers enthusiastically took inspiration from folk tunes or shepherds' songs, either in the original form or freely to give their compositions a similar touch.
Writing in the late 18th century, the Italian violinist Nicolò Pasquali said, in his homeland every family had a crib with the infant Jesus. At Christmas humble musicians and shepherds would go from house to house with their instruments, playing in front of it for a fee. A similar Christmas tradition can still be found in Rome, where shepherds and musicians from the surrounding countryside play outside homes, in front of shrines to the Virgin Mary.
On this recording we find music by Arcangelo Corelli (Concerto grosso in G minor, Op.6 No.8, "Fatto per la notte di natale"), Francesco Manfredini (Sinfonia da chiesa op.2 No.12 "per il santissimo Natale"), Georg Philipp Telemann (Trumpet Concerto in D major), Antonio Vivaldi (Concerto in F Minor, RV 297, L'Inverno, "Winter") and more.
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