Musing on Valentine's Day

I probably won't be able to blog on Valentine's Day, so I might as well blog about it now. It is not too early for it anyway. Valentine's Day is not my favourite holiday, but I do like it. Well, some of it anyway, sometimes. The eating chocolates part especially. I guess once appreciate it more when he/she is in a couple, but even then one can easily be disappointed: expectations are too high, things don't go as planned (overbooked restaurants, burnt food, bad wine, feeling unwell, etc), or simply it is in the wrong day of the week (let's say a rainy Monday or a freezing Wednesday, or simply the eve of a big day). I'll rather keep my expectations low. It is one day that couldn't quite get Christianised, even though it has the name of a Catholic saint. Thinking about it, there is nothing saintly about Valentine's Day, except its name.

I decided to put here in advance a Handel song to celebrate the day. It is again sung by Danielle de Niese (it seems that I am developing an obsession with that soprano). I hate pop songs and I am usually not a big fan of romantic songs when they are not at least 100 years old, so it makes sense that this one is from the XVIIIth century répertoire. It is called Endless pleasure, Endless love. For a change, the song is in English. The lyrics are here, and you can find here a little bit of what de Niese feels about the aria and her interpretation of it.