PASTORALE is a rounded bar form (AABA) tune with a melodic contour colored by gentle ornateness. Sing in unison or in harmony. Use a confident but not exuberant accompaniment with a legato pedal line tying many of the repeated notes in the bass part. Keep two pulses per measure, and slow down slightly in the last phrase of stanza 3.
Adrian Hartog (b. Orange CIty, IA, 1899; d. Edgerton, MN, 1964) composed PASTORALE in 1954. The tune was first published in the 1959 Psalter Hymnal with a version of Psalm 23 (thus its title). A member of the committee that produced the 1959 edition, Hartog also contributed the tune for the Christian Reformed Church centennial hymn (see 486 in that edition).
Hartog learned to play a reed (pump) organ from his father, organist at the First Christian Reformed Church, Orange City, Iowa. After the family moved to Edgerton, Minnesota, when he was fifteen, Hartog assisted and later succeeded his father as organist at the First Christian Reformed Church.
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He became owner of a grocery store that sold pianos and organs out of a back room; this business eventually grew into the Hartog Piano and Organ Company. Conductor of a community choir known as the Temple Choir, Hartog also published a handbook for organ students, A Comprehensive Manual on Organ Playing.
--Psalter Hymnal Handbook
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