2-28 Film, Voices by Jimmy Hsiao

Every year, I watch the film Voices, by Jimmy Hsiao to commemorate the 2-28 Incident.  We had a showing of this film at the University of Saskatchewan back in 1999.  Jimmy Hsiao made this film as an undergraduate at Yale.  I think he is now a doctor.  I wish the film were on YouTube.

It is very sad.  Families which were victims of this atrocity committed by the Kuomingtang troops which occupied Taiwan after WWII are interviewed.  My son watched it with me and noticed they were speaking Taiwanese (Hoklo) which he has some understanding of.  Some of the victims shown in the film were profiled in the brochure we made back in 1999.  My son said I should have shown him this in the morning (there is no time).  I said he shouldn't be afraid to tell Chinese people about this (just as he shouldn't be afraid to tell people he is Christian).

I can forgive, but I will not forget.  When I first read George Kerr's account in Formosa Betrayed, I was so moved and angry that I set to put the book on the internet.  I bought a scanner and the book was published on the internet 1997 November 11.  My anger is gone as bitterness is not the answer.  We need to forgive because of Christ's payment on the cross.  My late father-in-law saw the dead bodies lined along the streets of Tainan as a child in March 1947.  God bless Taiwan.

Géza Anda set arrived from Hamburg on February 10

I have admired Géza Anda since high school from his complete set of Mozart piano concerti.  This set of older mono recordings arrived from Hamburg on Monday.  I notice Amazon has a 10 CD set with some of these recordings as well from another German company.  I did get the Troubadour of the Piano as an MP3 download from Deutsche Gramophone a few years ago.  I often listen to those Schumann recordings (Fantasie, Symphonic Etudes).  I like those more than the SWR recordings from Hänssler I got from Musical Heritage Society.  I hope to listen to this set during the winter break.

Rusty calculus

I was asked about this integral yesterday:

I went off on a tangent by trying to use

cos(x + x) = cos(2x) = cos(x)cos(x) - sin(x)sin(x)
sin(x + x) = 2 sin(x) cos(x)

Today, I noticed this integral equals sec(2x)/2 -- from what I recalled of what the students showed me.

It's easy to show the derivative of sec(2x) = 2 sec(2x) tan(2x) by using the chain rule:

I wrote the above with LibreOffice 3 and found it easier to use than MS Word Equation Editor.  I then used WinGrab to capture the formulas to an image.

In numerical analysis, integrals are easy to calculate since you are summing areas, so the usefulness of analytic solutions seems unimportant.  Derivatives are harder to deal with numerically since you have to calculate a difference and divide.  However, I recall reading Russian geophysical papers from the 1960's which showed analytic solutions for some integrals and that is sure more elegant and exact than the numerical solutions (Russia didn't have very many digital computers back then!).

A package arrived from London on February 6

We met Alexandre Da Costa at Mont Tremblant in July and he signed his Lalo CD for us.  His newest CD (Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra) arrived from Presto Classical on February 6.  I listened to part of the first movement today.  The album also features the Beethoven 7th with the TSO.  This is also the first CD I have of an orchestra from my homeland.  I don't listen to the Beethoven Violin Concerto very much.  For some reason, I'm not as attracted to it as say the Bruch G minor, Brahms and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.  The first movement of the Beethoven violin concerto has a part in the opening tutti that is very majestic and often gives me the shivers though.

A package arrived from Rome on February 4

Many years ago (in the 1980's), I saw a PBS documentary featuring Carlo Maria Giulini conducting Beethoven's 5th with the LAPO.  It was during that time that I bought my first Brahms symphony record, an LP of the 2nd symphony with the LAPO (I recall buying it at The Bay in Calgary Market Mall - what a different era that was!).  I've always wanted to get his CD of the Beethoven 5th with the LAPO.  My Giulini collection was rather sparse and consisted of 2 CDs with the LAPO.  I had his recording of the Schumann Rhenish coupled with Sinopoli's Schubert Unfinished - it has given me great pleasure.  I do have several CDs where he accompanies soloists and some he recorded for Sony Classical in the 80's and 90's.  I also bought his LAPO recording of Brahms' First Symphony coupled with Schumann's Manfred Overture.  His Brahms First was playing in the home a last week when my wife cheered with approval upon its triumphant close.  It is the music to the hymn "We are God's people" which we sometimes sing at church.

Well, this past Tuesday, a package arrived from Rome with the 16 CD Art of Carlo Maria Giulini.  I now have that Beethoven 5th!  I did not actually pick it up until Wednesday.  And I listened to the Brahms First he recorded with the Vienna Philharmonic.  The following day (Wednesday), the 17 CD Giulini, The London Years arrived from Amazon.ca which I picked up on Thursday (I've not listened to these older EMI recordings yet).  I'm thinking Giulini's recordings of the Bruckner symphonies 7-9 will be my introduction Anton Bruckner - a composer a childhood friend of mine has long admired.

Giulini was a nice person on the podium and he did what was right - he opposed the Fascists.  A kind and generous soul indeed.