Completed Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony by Algorithm

When Ludwig van Beethoven died at the age of 56, he left the Tenth Symphony unfinished. No more than a few handwritten notes containing his plans for the piece survived. The incomplete parts of subject and melody that appeared on papers were now used to train an algorithm for composing like Beethoven.

You can basically compare the authoring algorithm to the writing software which makes suggestions for the next word in the sentence. If she understands the language, you’ll get practical sentences by following the program, but you probably won’t get the story you want to tell yourself. In this case, the piece of music to be written must not only be technically sound, but also follow a very specific style and theme. In order to achieve this, the algorithm had to undergo almost complete musical training. Then they made her listen to music from the time of the young Beethoven and then trained her on the music of Beethoven himself.

After a few years they were able to write a piece and organize it. In October it was staged in Bonn, Germany. Not every musician or music connoisseur thought he fully deserved Beethoven, but it is clear which master the algorithm was.

Read more: How Artificial Intelligence Completed Beethoven’s Incomplete Tenth Symphony.