Change & Decay In All Around I See

Friday 20 February 2009, 1:13PM

Happy nymphs and happy swains

Landscape with Polyphemus, 1649, Nicolas Poussin

Oh, the pleasure of the plains!
Happy nymphs and happy swains,
Harmless, merry, free and gay,
Dance and sport the hours away.

I’d like to be a happy swain. The quote is a line from a CD I’ve been listening to in a further bid to distract from the computer screen in front of me and the general greyness through the window to my left.

A few weeks ago Kate and I went to the Melrose Music Society to see the Dunedin Ensemble, a ‘subset’ of the Dunedin Consort, a group of musicians with strong links to Edinburgh who have recorded quite a few CDs we have really liked over the past couple of years.

It was a great evening, and one of the songs they performed was from their most recent release, a recording of Handel’s Acis and Galatea, a pretty pastoral tale of verdant plains, frolicking shepherds, warbling choruses and blithe and merry kidlings. Granted, there’s a one-eyed lovesick giant in there too, but you don’t notice too much unless you read along with the libretto.

Highly recommended if you want something cheering while you’re working. It’s also got a good cover, from the Poussin painting above.