An alleged Beethoven's 10th? Really? Boo or yay?

The Conversation reports that a team of musicologists, in conjunction with a team of artificial intelligence researchers, recently completed the first realization of what they call Beethoven's 10th Symphony.

Or Sym-phony? 

Pardon my skepticism. But, the manipulators have well earned it.

First, on the AI side, I've heard computer-generated music before. That includes computer-generated classical music. And, without knowing in advance it was computer-generated, in some cases. It sounded nice. Or rather, "nice."

Second, on the musicologist side, I've heard Barry Cooper's realization of the first movement before. Didn't like it. Sounded more like Schubert than Beethoven, among other things.

Third, on the music theory side, Beethoven left a lot less for "his" Tenth than Mahler did for his.

On the positive side?

The musicologists involved included Robert Levin, author of a renowned realization of Mozart's Requieum.

Second, in a test run, piano score, for an audience, supposedly, listeners couldn't tell where Beethoven ended and AI began.

I don't know if there's a recording of the full thing on YouTube, but there is a link to a snippet, audio only, at the end of the piece.

Still sounds as much like Schubert as Beethoven. Maybe not "more than," but still "as much as." And, to some degree, sounds like neither one totally. It sounds a bit like what Mozart might have done had he lived another decade. (That said, the snippet is from that same first movement that I critiqued above.)

Better, as least as far as something to listen to, but not actually better? I found the ALLEGED "full audio" on YouTube.

It AIN'T really "full audio," as Beethoven never would have written a 10th Symphony clocking just 21:30. I've left comments to that effect. This is like a master's of music thesis composition. Not even a doctor of music. Master's of music.

(At the YouTube page for the embedded video, people are chiding me for not understanding the project. Look, folks, unlike Barry Cooper, this isn't marketed as a "movement," and "full audio" can at least be interpreted as "the full enchilada." Don't blame me for perceiving a marketing attempt that backfired.)

Other commenters say it sounds like middle Beethoven, not late. I can halfway buy that, but even then, it doesn't sound THAT much like Beethoven. Compare it to, say, the 4th Symphony or 3rd Piano Concerto. 

Or, like a master's of music thesis composition!

There's the added problem, which Cooper admitted he faced, in that Beethoven's own sketches contradict each other, not a problem with the Mahler 10th. The new realizers appear to have taken a different fork at times, but I still think they have too little to work on.

It doesn't jazz me up a lot more than Cooper.

Finally, on an arrogance issue? Having the general public, music or other journalists or even musicologists allegedly not able to tell where Beethoven left off and where AI begins means little, for two major reasons.

First, there's so little in the way of Beethoven sketches beyond the first movement that it's mostly AI.

Second, given that the AI composers (I refuse to call this a "realization") say they used basically the entire Beethoven corpus, that means the trained listeners can't compare it to just late Beethoven. And, given that Beethoven, a la Prokofiev, never decided to write "A Symphony in Baroque Style," or per Schnittke, never wanted to write "A Suite in Baroque Style," using his whole corpus as an AI writing guide is a "fail." A necessary one, given the paucity of actual sketches, but one that just further illustrates the problem.

Third? As for the claim that journalists and musicologists even, couldn't tell where Beethoven stopped and AI started? I could tell where Beethoven stopped and bullshit started — when the organ comes in the first time, just after the 7-minute mark.

That's also a mark that this is bullshit by the modern pseudo-realizers. Given that Beethoven wrote almost nothing for organ, no way AI says "organ here." Humans did that. Humans writing something like ...  a master's of music thesis composition!

(Also at the YouTube page, one respondent to me says, imagine Beethoven dying earlier and never writing a choral symphony, but yet, somebody coming along and brilliantly saying ... "voila." Bull. First, as I noted, Beethoven lived to 57; he didn't die at Schubert's age. Second, we can play all sorts of games with such silly counterfactuals.)

And, feeding on that? I Twitter-searched "Beethoven's 10th," and see that the artistes and the recorders-engineers are touting this with the #BeethovenX hashtag. I Tweeted to a group:

Seriously this so-called #BeethovenX is like a thesis composition somebody would write for a master of music degree, and not even a PhD, and don't blame AI for that. This is ultimately on humans at the end, making overblown claims about #AI and about themselves.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 13, 2021

And Deutsche Telecom's account responded:

If you didn't like the result, it's totally fine. The perception of arts is always very individual. #BeethovenX was an experiment to find out if AI and arts can match. I'm pretty sure that Beethoven himself as a visionary would have curiously followed this approach. ^susann

— Deutsche Telekom AG (@deutschetelekom) October 14, 2021

To which I said:

>>I'm pretty sure that Beethoven himself as a visionary would have curiously followed this approach<<
I'm pretty sure not. Plus, don't blame AI for inserting an organ in a middle. IMO, this gets to the real issue. This wasn't even a "realization," as normally understood.

— Crushes Xi Jinping Thought Kool-Aid peddlers 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) October 14, 2021

C'mon, we're now entering the land of intellectual dishonesty. Humans ultimately wrote this up, and since this is orchestration, not a keyboard score, chose the instrumentation.

That includes the "master's of music theses" alleged creativity of adding an organ line in the middle. I'm pretty damned sure that, because Beethoven wrote little for organ, he would NOT have "curiously followed this approach."

So, per the header? "Boo!" And, in spades. And, why I added "An alleged" at the start of the header.

And, it's sad that a Robert Levin, with his great realization of the Mozart Requiem, would be part of this dreck.