[mairdie]

Absolutely fascinating. Can't wait to see what they come up with.

[ClearCase_guy]

I predict a syncopated, jazzy little number.

[King_Corey]

They took the credit for your second symphony
Rewritten by machine on new technology
And now I understand the problems you can see
Oh-a-oh I met your children Oh-a-oh
What did you tell them? Video killed the radio star
Video killed the radio star

[fruser1]

Was it good for you? If not, I’ve got this special AI device that can complete the task.

[Publius]

By this time, Beethoven's deafness was almost total. He had stopped performing and writing for piano. His Ninth Symphony was a complete departure from his earlier eight, having been written ten years after his Eighth Symphony. He was writing exclusively for string quartet.

His late quartets -- Opp. 127, 130, 131, 132 and 135 -- were almost a century ahead of his contemporaries. Music had to go through the whole Wagner thing and World War I before Beethoven's late quartets made sense and went mainstream.

I have little hope for this project.

[Cold Heart]

1827 and now they are racing. Did they find a deadline in the Mayan calendar?

[Mariner]

As long as it does not bear Beethoven’s name.

[left that other site]

To make this work, they will have to make the computer nearly totally deaf.

[JimRed]

Now, a team of musicologists and programmers is racing to complete a version of the piece using sophisticated computer software to predict what Beethoven had planned.

Racing? It's been around for 192 years, and it ain't going anywhere this week!

[Leep]

His last words were “Rosebud”.

[BEJ]

I think nothing will happen of note. A machine can simulate based on a calculation of style — what does all Beethoven music stylistically have in common that makes it sound like Beethoven — but then it’s just something that is watered down, the common denominator derivative from many sources. There is no inspiration that sees the greatness of an idea. There is no creative impulse; no excitement that discriminates between good ideas and great ideas. There is nothing of Beethoven’s heart and soul in the music. And you need heart and soul to make great music.

[TheNext]

UNFINISHED SYMPHONY

Take some quarter and half notes,
add pitches A to G,
add chord progression,
some cadence,
drink a lot of beer.

Wear a white curly wig.

Next morning, play back what you created.

[Sirius Lee]

For my money, Old Ludwig’s Grosse Fugue from op. 133 IS his 10th Symphony and the culmination of all that is Beethoven. It is absolute music and stands alone like the Great Pyramid, it’s craftsmanship that can be appreciated on a purely intellectual level, and yet emotionally compelling upon realization of its grandeur (whereas the Hammerklavier is the culmination of his piano compositions and can only be enjoyed in its natural and human scale keyboard element).

It is a work for immortal ears, and those who can truly discern the angels among them from the demons. Beethoven is a gift from God. Not a mere transcriber of the divine, like Mozart, but a Jacob like man who wrestled against God’s creation only to verify it.

[IronJack]

How DARE they!!! No computer on earth can begin to read the mind of a man with Beethoven’s gift. This will be a fustian epigone at best.

[ExGeeEye]

I have a CD of a completed first movement of a 10th symphony, done in the late 80’s. I had read a Fayetteville, NC newspaper writeup no later than 1989, and found the CD in an Austin, TX music shop sometime after 1995. I ripped an MP3 to my computer and can listen to it now.

Don’t know what this new project is about...

[MuttTheHoople]

It was already completed in 1975

Click here.

[firebrand]

Don’t you dare!