All that German composer Ludwig van Beethoven left behind were a few notes written in his notebook. It is a great regret to have seen his last great work unfinished due to his death in 1827.
Now a team of musicologists and programmers is racing to complete Beethoven's Tenth Symphony (or at least a possible version of it) using artificial intelligence, ahead of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.
“The progress has been impressive, although the computer still has a lot to learn,” says Christine Siegert, responsible for the archives of Beethoven House in the hometown of the composer of Bonn.
Siegert said she was “convinced” that Beethoven would have approved since he too was an innovator at that time. You cited his compositions for the Panharmonicon, a type of organ that reproduces the sounds of wind and percussion instruments. She insisted that the AI's work will not affect her legacy because it will never be considered part of her work.
The final result of the project will be performed by a full orchestra on April 28 next year in Bonn. It will be a key event in the celebrations for a composer who defined the Romantic era of classical music.
“It's completely new territory”Said Dirk Kaftan. He is the director of the orchestra that will perform the work.
Unfinished Beethoven, the concerns of fellow citizens
Beethoven, Germany's most famous musical figure, is beloved in his homeland and critics of the project are concerned about protecting Beethoven's legacy.
The “national duty” to prepare for the anniversary was even written into a left-right coalition agreement to form an agreement six years ago.
The year of celebration officially begins on December 16, believed to be his 249th birthday.
But a print preview Friday at the Beethoven House Museum in his hometown of Bonn following a renovation offered insights into his genius, including the notebooks he used to compile after becoming deaf in 1801, a full 26 years before his death .
Ninth and Tenth symphony, monumental masterpieces by Beethoven
Beethoven began working on the tenth symphony along with his ninth, which includes the famous "Ode to Joy".
The works, however, never saw the light together: the composer left only incomplete drafts of the Tenth Symphony when he died at the age of 57.
In the project, the machine learning software has been trained with all Beethoven's work and is now composing possible completions of the symphony in the composer's style.
Deutsche Telekom, which sponsors the project, hopes to use the results to develop technologies such as speech recognition.
Tenth symphony by Beethoven: artificial intelligence, musical ear
The team involved in the project said that initial results from a few months ago were considered too mechanical and repetitive, but AI is rapidly refining its capabilities. The next generation will be perfect.
Barry Cooper, British composer and musicologist who in 1988 wrote a hypothetical first movement for the Tenth Symphony is more doubtful.
“I listened to a short excerpt created byartificial intelligence. It didn't sound even remotely like a convincing reconstruction of what Beethoven intended." Cooper said. He can be trusted, as he is an eminent Professor at the University of Manchester as well as the author of numerous works on Beethoven.
The room for improvement
Similar artificial intelligence experiments based on works by Bach, Mahler and Schubert did not make a miracle cry.
A project to complete Schubert's unfinished eighth symphony was unveiled earlier this year. For some reviewers it was closer to the soundtrack of an American film than to the work of the German composer.
Time to time: AI travels at impressive speed. Beethoven's Tenth Symphony could soon have an ending too.
