It is understandable that in the midst of such woes, one might turn toward something harmless like classical music to wallow in sophisticated creativity, cultural tradition, and human mystery.
Cantor describes his experience of composing with AI as having a tireless collaborator, who never runs out of ideas and does not become cranky.
We know that Schubert succeeded, but does Huawei’s experiment reflect this lofty rhetoric? Those with ears to hear can listen to the experiment on the website: Consumer.Huawei.com
Impression Management
![Perhaps Schubert intentionally left his Symphony No. 8 in B Minor unfinished. A page from the “Unfinished Symphony,” third movement, Facsimile, 1885, In J. R. von Herbeck’s biography on Franz Schubert. (Public Domain)](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F02%2F24%2F3_5_Schuberts-unfinished-symphony-495x350.jpg&w=1200&q=75)
Where Schubert’s first two movements seek voice in an intimate, personal, and tragic lyricism, reflecting an internal, subjective dialogue, the final two movements transform the symphony’s identity with pretentiously epic and dramatic elements. The grandiose ending of the fourth movement is entirely unsuited to the uncertain and haunting starting point of the first movement.
The final two movements communicate profound ignorance of autonomous art or artistic development. Grafted to provoke acclaim and applause, they are impression management at its worst.
The completed movements are trivial and achieve ultimately a loose and inauthentic family resemblance to Schubert. This is despite their rehashing material of the first two movements, which appears courtesy of the smartphone in melodic snippets and reduces Schubertian features to clichés. (His repetitive string accompaniment, for instance, lends a characteristic searching dynamic to the first movement, but seems out of place in the others.)
The formally weak, rhapsodic structure especially cannot really sustain interest. It demands an external narrative to illustrate. To be sure, the music is no worse than the slush that is poured over TV’s historical soap operas.
So, what do we learn then about music and artificial intelligence? Most importantly: The composition of music is a unique human achievement, and no mere constructive process that cobbles together a pre-given, flat pack of ideas. Unlike modular kitchens, symphonies intimately link material and form as they come to life and evolve together.
Analytical extraction of musical material (melodies, motifs, or phrases) cannot lead to a natural, artistic composition. Huawei’s experiment is artistically and aesthetically naive.
At the beginning of any musical composition is the intuition of voice or spirit.
When after several introductory bars, the clarinet and oboe in unison strike up their sweet song over the quiet murmur of the violins, then every child knows the composer, and the half-suppressed exclamation “Schubert” passes whispered through the hall.
In the unity of musical form and material, the composer articulates spirit. Hanslick refers to this as “character.” It seems that character is entirely lacking from Huawei’s experiment.Without character, we have no authentic humanity. How could flattening of spirit ever make the world a better place?