Géza Anda , MySQL and PHP

The past two years, I've remembered Géza Anda's passing on this blog.  I was so busy this year I forgot.  I've been listening to a lot of Ivan Moravec these days, but I pulled out some of my favorite Anda recordings again.  The Schumann Fantasie and Symphonic Etudes played by Anda are always interesting.  He can really rush things sometimes.  I think I should pull out the Mozart piano concerto set I was given last Christmas too.  I've been listening to Murray Perahia's set in my car.

Tonight, I figured out how to make receipts from a MySQL database.  It's nothing fancy.  I just used PHP to read the records from MySQL and then had it generate numbered receipts by using HTML tables to format them.  I also figured out how to use PHP to display an RSS feed on this page.  I really like open source.  My default office suite is LibreOffice.  Python, Inkscape and Audacity are among the other open source tools I use.  I used Audacity to analyse sound and I used it in my kid's grade 4 class to check who could play a violin note in tune.

Today, a student had trouble with a Powerpoint file generated from a Mac app (not Office Mac).  I had asked her to save it as PPTX, but that was not possible as she didn't have Office Mac.  I converted the slides to images and was about to insert an image library into Powerpoint 2010 when I remembered an online conversion service.  The Mac PPT wouldn't load into Powerpoint 2010 but it did load into LibreOffice 3.5 with glitches (funny how the open source product worked better huh?). I remembered a service I had used successfully before.  I did a Google search "z format conversion" and found Zamzar.  The offending PPT was uploaded to Zamzar and within a few minutes, I was sent an e-mail with a link to the converted file.  Voila, it worked!  The audio files were in M4A format.  I tried VLC Player to convert to MP3 without success.  Next I used Adobe Soundbooth to convert M4A to MP3 and it worked.  Finally, I use Audacity to edit her 3 converted MP3 audio clips together as the background music for the PPT.  I am more familiar with Audacity than SoundBooth (that's why I didn't edit and merge the clips from SoundBooth).

Piano Recital Day

Today was piano recital day for students of the Saskatoon Yamaha Music School.  In the afternoon, there were group lesson recitals and in the evening, there was a wide variety of music from private lesson students.  Their teacher played a Mozart fantasia to start off the evening recital.  It wasn't KV 475, but maybe it was KV 397.  I must admit I don't listen to very much solo Mozart.  Incidentally, we heard the Twinkle variations this morning on the radio (I think it was Janina Fialkowska's recording) on the way to the Forestry Farm Park.  The Ohio Buckeyes are starting to bloom there.

Ohio Buckeye, Forestry Farm Park

Ohio Buckeye Blossom

We have an Ohio Buckeye in our backyard and it blossomed for the first ime last year.  I admired the European Horse Chestnuts in Toronto when they bloomed in June.  They are a common street tree in southern Ontario.  I saw some beautiful specimens by the lake in Oakville last summer.  It's too cold to grow them in Saskatchewan, so I planted an Ohio Buckeye on 2008 August 30.

This year, I've been listening to several Ivan Moravec solo albums.  I got his Vox Chopin album from Passionato (now defunct it seems).  There is a Youtube that goes with this album.  Unfortunately, my CD had a pressing defect and I ordered another through Amazon.ca Marketplace.  I'm still immersed in this Chopin album after first hearing it in February.  Next I got the Vox double CD album of Chopin and Debussy.  I don't appreciate Debussy too much, but the Chopin is a favorite CD now.  Love the Polonaise Fantasie!  I've always liked Pollini's version, but this one has better, fuller sound.  I also got his double CD of Mozart concerti with Marriner.  Finally, a 4 CD piano recital box has recently arrived and I'm looking forward to a summer of Ivan Moravec's playing.