Beethoven X

 

I think it's a great idea that you can immortalize a composer using their "dataset". I know it sounds coarse talking about Beethoven, but I think he would have loved it, yet would have also been horrified what happened to the world that would allow something like that to be possible. But it is exactly the horrors of history that allow music to evolve. If we were to immortalize say, Stravinsky, we couldn't pin down a signature style because he was more eclectic, particularly his neoclassical period. Plus, so many composers have already copied Stravinsky or were simply inspired by him, including heavy metal bands. 

What’s more interesting is to take Beethoven data combined with other composer (and band) data, which will be a new kind of classical remix. Remix is something Beethoven wouldn’t have liked, but 20th century composers would have.

A few days ago I was thinking about how the rapid pace of technology makes us expect things to be unstable, unlike Beethoven's time, where you could write in one style your entire lifetime. But I find that very boring. Perhaps remix (with AI or otherwise) keeps things fresh, but at the same time, you become nostalgic for the idea of creative stability over longer periods. Using new technologies to extend that indefinitely is exciting as well.