Handel's Pastoral Symphony (from "The Messiah") is one of 5 Christmas arrangements for intermediate string ensemble included in Richard Young's Comprehensive String Pedagogy & Curriculum. A portion of the proceeds of sales for all CSPC music goes to support free music education at The People's Music School.

This is the moment in The Messiah when time seems to stop. No matter what kind of stress there may be in our lives, this "pifa" is the perfect remedy. Its sincerity and utter simplicity make it one of the most serene pieces ever written. And when it is played by children, our hearts melt.
 As indicated in these edited parts, the siciliano rhythmic figure [dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth] should always be played with separate bows, not slurred. The traditional (and correct) way to play this rhythm is to put a slight space between the first and second notes, and to use very little bow on the sixteenth note which should be slightly late and fast. The third note of the siciliano figure (the eighth note) should be long, not short. In fact, every single non-slurred eighth note in this entire piece should be long.
-Richard Young

Full program notes are included with the score. There are fingerings and bowings in all the string parts of every one of CSPC's pieces. These "cooked-in" technical solutions target the particular levels of the students. They are not just pragmatic but "musical."

Please note that due to a loss of source files, the PDF files of the music have been generated from scanned copies of printed parts. While every effort has been made to produce high quality parts, the limitations of scanning will result in some degradation of print quality.