VI
EN
The project, which was researched for two years by a team of composers and engineers, was presented to the public on October 9th in Bonn, Germany – Beethoven's birthplace.
On YouTube, the majority of viewers expressed praise for the music. One user commented: "What I'm hearing is truly Beethoven's music," and "I like the use of the organ in the medley. I agree with many people that..."Symphony No. 10"It embodies nostalgia and the respect Beethoven had for Bach and Handel," one commenter wrote. Others praised the product as interesting but noted a lack of the subtle connection between the parts found in Beethoven's works.
In an article published in The Independent on October 14th, Professor Ahmed Elgammal of Rutgers University (USA), the initiator of the project, said that he knew some people would disagree with the idea that art transcends algorithms. However, he also argued that artificial intelligence is a tool that opens doors for artists to express themselves in new ways.
Portrait of the composer Ludwig van Beethoven
Ahmed Elgammal conceived the idea of continuing "Symphony No. 10" in 2019. He contacted Dr. Matthias Roeder, Director of the Karajan Institute in Austria, to present his idea. Dr. Roeder assembled a research team, including Austrian composer Walter Werzowa, who was responsible for conceptualizing the work's composition. Composer Mark Gotham was tasked with copying Beethoven's sketches and processing his entire work to create input data. The project also involved Robert Levin, a pianist who had previously worked on several works by Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach.
Professor Ahmed Elgammal stated that the work faced many obstacles because AI at that time was still simple and unable to perform many complex operations. They spent a lot of time "training" the AI to understand the composer's style, how he developed notes into vibrant symphonies, quartets, and sonatas. For example, the AI referenced Beethoven's construction of Symphony No. 5 using the four-note motif of "short-short-short-long" repetition. In addition, the AI learned to connect and arrange sections, and assign instruments to different parts. They performed numerous test concerts for experts and researchers before publishing the project.
Group of composers and researchers
Beethoven died in 1827, three years after completing Symphony No. 9. He had written sketches and some ideas for Symphony No. 10, but his health was failing. In 1998, musicologist Barry Cooper studied 250 of Beethoven's sketches, using them to find his style to complete the first and second movements of Symphony No. 10. However, this version was not widely popularized.
Audiences can enjoy "Symphony No. 10" here:
