Was it good for you? If not, I’ve got this special AI device that can complete the task.
I don’t have the recording right in front of me, but a musicologist named Barry Cooper completed a performing version of the Beethoven 10th in the late 1980s.
Conductor Wyn Morris and the London Symphony orchestra recorded it.
It’s been on my shelf for a long time, and I have to say it made very little impression on me. I’m a serious Beethoven collector and have upwards of 20 complete symphony cycles with different orchestras and conductors.
So, I have my doubts about this AI project.
I’m by no means close-minded about posthumous collaborations. For example, Gustav Mahler left such extensive sketches for his 10th symphony that there are now several performing versions that have won acceptance. Basically, his work was complete enough that all that was needed was to flesh out the orchestration.
I suspect most classical buffs know that Mozart’s pupil Franz Sussmayr completed his celebrated Requiem. And Puccini’s last opera “Turandot” — including the famous tenor aria “Nessun Dorma” — was completed by Franco Alfano.
Musicologists like to disparage the work of these two composers as inferior to the parts written by the deceased. I prefer to appreciate them for being faithful to the original.
Still, the idea of a computer generated Beethoven 10th leaves me pretty cold.