Extract from pp.

244-245 of The Creative Development of Johann Sebastian Bach, Volume II: 1717-1750
by Richard D.P. Jones (© 2013, Oxford University Press)

The Pastorella in F, BWV 590, is unique among Bach's organ works. Singular features include the
four-movement form, otherwise found only in Bach's sonatas; the restriction of pedals to the first
movement only; and the key scheme, F-a, C, c-f (half-close), F, which is clearly designed to create
smooth joins between the movements. The earliest source, Johann Peter Kellner's copy, dates from
after 1727, and the use of treble rather than soprano clef in the upper stave points to a composition
date after 1725. The piece has been linked to the South German/Italian tradition of Christmas
pastorales—referring to the shepherds of the Nativity story—for organ in several movements by
Frescobaldi, Zipoli, Georg Muffat, and others. Its style, however, particularly in the inner
movements, represents Bach at his most galant and forward-looking. The C major second
movement is galant not only in its syncopated rhythms but in the use of binary dance form without
a specific dance rhythm, as in the rondeau from BWV 918. In general, the style is not dissimilar to
that of certain movements from the keyboard Partitas. The C minor slow movement no. 3 is
perhaps one of the most purely Italianate pieces that Bach ever wrote. Its purely
homophonic texture, with treble melody in triplet semiquavers accompanied by repeated-
quaver chords, seems to belong rather to the middle than the early years of the eighteenth
century. The true pastorale is the opening movement, with its compound metre and its long pedal
points. The finale is a three-part fugue in gigue rhythm, with the subject inverted after the double
bar and the direct subject returning at the end (as in the E minor Partita, BWV 830, of 1725).

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