Schubert never finished his 8th symphony although he lived for six more years and Mahler wrote the first movement of his 10th symphony in very completed form. So what happened to sketches of Beethoven’s 10th symphony? A realization of extant fragments has been produced through artificial intelligence (AI) and performed on this BMG label disc by Beethoven Orchester Bonn along with this composer’s 8th symphony. The world premiere of No. 10 took place last week in Bonn.
The program booklet describes the recording as Beethoven X The AI Project and explains, “And we want to stimulate reflection and a dialogue about the role played by technology and how it influences our lives – including how it influences art and music…That is why our project addresses key questions related to AI such as: can algorithms be creative?” Which means composer Walter Werzowa teamed up with Matthias Roeder of the Karajan Institute and Mindshift, Beethoven Haus Bonn, musicologists and Telekom to produce an adaptation of Beethoven’s 10th symphony that leaves nothing and everything to the imagination.
It’s not the first time this work has been approached: in 1988, British musicologist Barry Cooper performed his version of the unfinished 10th symphony using 250 sketches from the first movement that he maintains were actually written by Beethoven. I was of course less skeptical about ordering pizza made by a robot than listening to a Midi adaptation of Beethoven’s musical mind.
Nonetheless, since Beethoven Orchester Bonn under Dirk Kaftan drew out such a finely chiseled, energized reading of their namesake composer’s 8th symphony, Op. 93, enhanced by crisp entries from brass - bring on the 10th symphony IA collaboration. The so-called two movement work lasts about 21 minutes and listening became a fun exercise about where the recycled material used might have come from. Apparently the AI machine was fed numerous examples of Beethoven’s works which were then narrowed down and stitched together in metric and harmonic snippets to best represent what the composer might have intentioned. The result sounded like musical patchwork.
Beethoven was a master of rhythmic twists and so reoccurring threads of a four-beat metric pattern taken from the 3rd movement of this composer’s 5th symphony are present throughout as are occasional timpani bursts reminiscent of the 9th symphony and endless sequences of notes that don’t resolve to any particular melodic conclusion. There are however very lovely organ interludes evoking a chorale tune, highlighting Cameron Carpenter as well as modulating Baroque styled fugato passages that the AI team conjured up.
Of course it’s impossible to know what Beethoven would have produced from his sketches but we do know that he was keen on composing a 10th symphony and even started writing a 6th piano concerto – although “The Emperor” seems quite sufficient. The AI Project in collaboration with the fine Beethoven Orchester Bonn not only gives us food for thought but in many ways is a statement of the times in which we live. Technology is an ever present part of our global world as are electroacoustic works written by composers of our time. In a sense, this project can expand our imagination and interest in revisiting works that Beethoven began in his manuscripts – of which many pages are cluttered with corrections. One might even wonder what AI might do with those discarded measures…
Thank you Beethoven X The AI Project for the innovation.