The mystery of the "Happy Birthday" variations

Another "mystery" has been solved for me.

A loooong long time ago when I was still in grade school I begun to listen to the only classical music radio station here in the country. I always had a blank cassette tape ready in our radio-cassette player because whenever I found a music piece currently playing to my liking I would rush to record it onto the cassette tape. One of the intriguing pieces of music I recorded was a series of very clever variations on "Happy Birthday" arranged for the piano and done in the style of some of Beethoven's "greatest hits" : Fur Elise, Minuet in G, and the first movements of his Moonlight Sonata, Pathetique Sonata and Fifth Symphony. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the name of either the composer or the performer. This left me wondering all these years about the identities of both.

Then while in Ames, Iowa for my graduate studies, I came across some CD albums of a pianist named John Bayless and discovered his penchant for improvising on themes of popular classical composers. When I found out that he had recorded an album called "Happy Birthday, Bach", I thought that I had finally solved the mystery of the happy birthday variations. But since I could never find recordings by Bayless that included the Beethoven happy birthday variations I simply believed that they were no longer available.

I totally forgot all about those happy birthday variations for at least another ten years ... until last night when I thought that I'd search the Internet one more time for even a bit of information. That's when my search on "happy birthday beethoven variations" using Google on brought up a website that mentioned a set of happy birthday variations called "Happy Birthday, dear Ludwig" arranged by Leonid Hambro on a number of works by Beethoven. When I saw the list of Beethoven works I began to sense that this might be the answer to my long search. The website included links to midi files prepared by the website's author/owner and I clicked on those to listen to the recordings. To my great delight, except for some differences in interpretation they tallied with what I heard over the radio all those years ago! At the moment, I realized that at last, at last, I had solved the mystery of the happy birthday variations.

Although I don't know who had performed the "Happy Birthday, dear Ludwig" that I heard over the radio (I strongly suspect that it was Leonid Hambro himself) at least I know that I can move onto the other "musical mysteries" from my childhood: another piano piece my father had recorded from one of my grandmother's long-playing records and some baroque-sounding music used for a KLM commercial ...

The "new" face of Bach

A news article by Reuters reports that, "Experts have digitally rebuilt the face of 18th century German composer Johann Sebastian Bach ... ." The article is accompanied by a graphic showing the digital reconstruction of the face of the great composer and claims that "the results [of the reconstruction] may surprise his fans."

But to me this "new" face doesn't look that much different from that on the well-known portrait of Bach painted by Elias G. Haussman in 1746. Except for the wig, of course. So nothing new there--only perhaps that the reconstruction is simply proof of the skill of Haussman as a portraitist.

It would be wonderful though if someone discovered Mozart's long-lost grave. Now that's one face I'd like to see scientists and artists reconstruct!
Photo credit: REUTERS/Centre for Anatomy & Human Identification, University Dundee/Bachhaus Eisenach/Handout

How odd ... #1

This morning I was working at my PC editing the questionnaire of one the exams I'm giving tomorrow, there was a voltage fluctuation. To my surprise, the monitor of my PC just went blank. Then I noticed that the LED light on the casing of my PC had stopped flickering. My PC had shut down!

This was highly unexpected because my PC is plugged into a uninterrupted power supply unit. Normally, if there was a power outage, the UPS battery would kick in and provide backup power for at least 15 minutes. This is sufficient time for me to close all applications and shut down my PC properly. But that didn't happen at all this time around. It must be that the battery needs changing or something. How odd.

I'll have to consult our technician within the next week or so. I can't risk losing documents after working on them for a long time. Thankfully most word processing software have this feature that recovers unsaved documents.

Getting cheated while watching the Oscars

Today the country is celebrating the anniversary of the EDSA revolution of 1986 and so Malacanang declared that today is a non-working holiday at the last minute (just last week). And luckily so--for me at least. That's because I got to stay home and watch the Academy Awards ceremony.

Unfortunately, this latest of holidays didn't start out too well. There was supposed to be telecast "live" of the Oscar awards this morning at 9:30am according to ABS-CBN. But I was disappointed this morning when I turned on the tv to tune in just past 9:35am and found a cartoon show on instead. I frantically surfed through other channels to see if the awards were being shown elsewhere but to no avail. At last around 9:45am, the telecast started. Ah, I thought, how typical.

Who else observes "Filipino time" better than ABS-CBN? They apparently don't have a programming schedule at all--or at least aren't disciplined enough to follow one--and simply advertise that so-and-so tv show will be shown after this other tv show and not starting at a specific time. This practice makes it virtually impossible for people to program their VCRs or DVD recorders in order to record a certain show. I should know. I spent two months the other year recording local telenovelas for my mom who was then abroad. It was such a nightmare having to wait for a show to start instead of simply turning on the tv and the VCR at the appointed time. But I digress...

I was complaining about the late start of the so-called "live" telecast of the Oscars. Now, isn't this late start basis for false advertisement as well? The ceremonies were supposed to be shown live and yet while chatting with my sister in Canada, I found that the ceremonies had started right on time at 9:30am and that three awards had already been given out by that time. Thus this was no live telecast at all but a delayed telecast. In fact, I was not surprised when there were unusually long commercial breaks (I know commercial breaks in the US are comparatively short) and there was some obvious editing done. For example, just after one award was given the telecast would cut, without showing the exit of the previous winner, to the next presenter in the middle of delivering his lines. Sure enough after going through the list of winners on the Internet I realized that the awarding of best documentary short film, best animated short film and best make-up--and who knows what other features or program numbers--were omitted from the telecast.

Ah well. At least Ratatouille won this year's best animated feature film.

Wonderful weather and weird behavior

We've been having wonderful weather these past few weeks. What I mean by "wonderful weather" is relatively cool weather for this country: temperatures hovering around the mid- and lower- 20s (celsius) rather in the upper-20s to low-30s.

And I'm saying it's wonderful also because I'm really enjoying this. It's just so refreshing not to sweat for a change after a brisk walk to outside campus to buy lunch. Then here at home I no longer have to strain my ears while listening to tv dialogue while the fan buzzes in the background. And then at work, I don't have to turn on my air-conditioning unit; I just open the windows and set-up a fan next to them to blow in the cool fresh air. The university should be thankful that I'm saving them hundreds of pesos on its electric bill!

Most other people here on the other hand are suffering from the sudden cold spell. I notice that many of my students and colleagues at work have started wearing long-sleeved shirts, jackets, sweaters--and even scarves! Boy, do I feel lucky that I went through four numbing winters while pursuing graduate studies abroad. I still can go about the house wearing my tank top and shorts and don't need to pile on layers to walk outside. I do wear my pajamas though instead of my nightgown when I go to bed as I tend to wake up shivering during the wee hours of the morning when temperatures really drop.

Unfortunately, I have observed some weird behavior at the same time. For instance, staff workers at the main office of my department insist on turning on their air-conditioning unit in their room--and at full blast, too! They end up having to wear sweaters and jackets indoors. I even had one student show up at class and request that I turn up the air-conditioning in the classroom because he was feeling warm. (We still turn on the air-conditioning in our classrooms since the room can get unbearably stuff with all the windows sealed closed.) I looked at him and observed that he was wearing a heavy dark blue-grey jacket over a simple white t-shirt. So I simply told him, "Tanggalin mo na lang ang jacket mo!" (Why don't you just take off your jacket?)

The one thing I don't like about the cold weather is that it's been unusually gloomy because of overcast skies and occasional showers. Sigh! We had a bit of sun this morning but that was short-lived. Ah well. I still prefer this to hot humid weather.

Little ceramic angel from the Amana colonies

I've just discovered another good spot here at home for taking pictures: the small desk with a laminated top that I use for my laptop. I had just clamped on my old IKEA lamp a few months ago and use it as my only light source while working at my laptop. Now I've found that it's a good light source for macro photos. He-he.

Here's a photo that I took of the ceramic/bisque angel that was given to me by my mom so many years ago after she visited the Amana colonies in Iowa. I was looking around for something to take picture of this weekend--like I said I'm shutter happy nowadays--and decided to give the figurine a try. I just didn't to dust it off well enough before shooting away so that one can clearly see individual dust particles in the original image. Ugh! I'm glad only smaller versions are displayed on Flickr!

My St. Valentine's Day rose

Last Thursday, the fourteenth of February, I was surprised by some students belonging to a student organization when they presented me with a single white rose.

I quickly put it in an empty tumbler that I had filled with just enough water. I brought it home that same evening and where I finally found it a proper home in one of our glass vases. Since I am going through my shutter-happy phase, I also took a couple of photos under florescent lights.

I wasn't satisfied with these first few photos since the artificial lighting coming from overhead combined with a plain white background (actually the side of our fridge) made for a rather flat image. So I decided to take more photos yesterday morning downstairs in the basement bedroom where sunlight filters in beautifully through the south-facing windows "a la Vermeer".

It took several trials with different angles and lighting to come up with a shot that I at least thought looked good enough to post on my Flickr account. I must say, that even if the flower was already slightly wilted I'm delighted with the way its white/cream color stood out nicely against the blue bedspread. He-he.