The social and political aspects of the pastoral mode in musico-dramatic works, London, 1695--1728

Any workable definition of pastoral must be grounded in the fact that the mode speaks of the lives and actions of shepherds. Inherent in this, however, is the understanding that pastoral is not really about shepherds at all, but is instead a commentary on "civilized" society. The present study begins from this perspective, and explores how the pastoral mode is used in musico-dramatic works performed in London between 1695 and 1728, and examines its various meanings in relation both to the authors who engage the mode and to society in general. In addition it investigates how composers approached the musical setting of these texts. It reveals that the London-based playwrights and librettists who engage the pastoral mode do so in part to comment on a number of social and political issues, ranging from the fashions of particular segments of the population, to the monarchy, to morality and to courtship and marriage.;The libretto reforms begun in Italy in the early 1700s had a significant impact on how pastoral was perceived and employed in London later in the century. As librettists began stripping their tragedies of the lowest class of protagonist, the pastoral characters shifted in purpose as well, becoming much more rustic alongside their social betters. The musical styles employed by composers to depict the shepherds and shepherdesses followed suit, and the conventions traditionally associated with music for the lowest class started appearing more regularly in conjunction with pastoral characters, reflecting the latter's new and more formalized lower-class status.;Through an analysis of the musical settings of pastoral texts, this thesis concludes that there are few, if any, specifically musical pastoral conventions in use at this time. In the years covered by this study, composers who set pastoral-related texts borrowed freely from musical styles traditionally associated with both aristocratic and rustic protagonists. As a result these settings position the pastoral characters as belonging to neither the upper or lower class, but existing in a nexus that lies somewhere outside the class system.