Published: 14th October, 2021 at 04:00
When he died in 1827 aged 56, Ludwig van Beethoven left his 10th symphony unfinished. Only a few handwritten notes briefly detailing his plans for the piece have survived, with most just being incomplete ideas or fragments of themes or melodies.
Now, a multidisciplinary team of computer scientists at Rutgers University-based start-up Playform AI have trained an artificial intelligence to mimic the great composer’s style and used it to write a complete symphony based on these initial sketches.
We spoke to the lead researcher on the project, Professor Ahmed Elgammal, to find out more.
How much of Beethoven’s manuscript was available to you to start from?
Beethoven left sketches in different forms, mainly musical sketches, but also some written notes with some ideas in as well. Previously, in 1988 [English musicologist] Barry Cooper used the majority of these sketches, about 250 bars of music, that were meant for a first movement [in his attempt to complete the symphony].
Source: How an artificial intelligence finished Beethoven’s last symphony – BBC Science Focus Magazine