Cope attracted praise from musicians and computer scientists, but his creation raised troubling questions: If a machine could write a Mozart sonata every bit as good as the originals, then what was so special about Mozart? And was there really any soul behind the great works, or were Beethoven and his ilk just clever mathematical manipulators of notes?

Cope’s answers — not much, and yes — made some people very angry.

—“Triumph of the Cyborg Composer”

This comes from a very interesting article, but I take issue with the former of these questions and answers. As a student in an introductory counterpoint class, I wrote chorales, canons, and fugues in the style of Bach, of Beethoven, and of Brahms. Any second- or third-rate composer can write “in the style of” a great composer. What is “so special about Mozart” is that no one wrote like him until him. That someone, even a computer, can write like him after-the-fact is only as impressive as someone today painting in the style of Michelangelo.

A little meme I picked up from Rachel yesterday. I’ve had this post ready since yesterday (because I love to talk about music), but am only posting it now because YOU CAN LOSE A LOT OF POTENTIALLY OTHERWISE MORE PRODUCTIVE TIME LISTENING TO EVERYTHING ON THIS LIST. Be careful. You’ve been warned.

I have complex systems for randomizing my music and making sure I don’t listen to the same albums over and over again (not inherently bad, but I have 35-and-a-half days of music in iTunes, and I start to feel guilty), so here is a selection of the last 10 albums I’ve listened to on purpose. As Rachel said, this is in no way complete or necessarily “top”. The artists in parentheses are the artists on the recordings I have, not the artists you’ll see in the linked videos.

• Lonely Runs Both Ways (If I Didn’t Know Any Better) and New Favorite (New Favorite) by Alison Krauss & Union Station. Seriously lovely bluegrass, though they haven’t done videos of my favorites: “Borderline” and “Crazy Faith” (heh). Along with some others, this groups tends to top my play count when it comes to popular music.
• The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky (Seiji Ozawa with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) (Ritual of the Ancients). I’m sure there are better recordings (and I’d love to know what they are). Many of the students in my Spanish class didn’t know what La consagración de la primavera was, so I played this (album, not video) during class a few days ago.
• Bajofondo Tango Club (video). I love concert-hall tango. I love fusion. I love electronic concert-hall tango fusion. I could easily replace this with anything by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones (Outbound) is a few albums down, as a matter of fact). In summary, fusion makes me drool.
• Don Juan by Richard Strauss (Herbert von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic). Strauss is up there with Mahler as one of the culminating points of the German Romantic orchestral tradition. Also sprach Zarathustra is a few albums down. Salomé and Don Quixote belong on this list as well, not to mention Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks) 1 2.
• Daphnis et Chloé by Maurice Ravel (Sir Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra). Oh god, the harmonies!
• Symphony No. 3 in Eb, ‘Eroica’ by Ludwig van Beethoven (Leonard Bernstein with the Berlin Philharmonic) 1 2. Probably the most adventurous symphony ever written, for its time, and easily my favorite Beethoven symphony. The first movement is glorious. Hemiola galore, serious metric instability, the famous Db/C# in the primary theme, bold chromatic shifting. The transition to the E minor section in the development (Neapolitan minor!) from D minor (minor leading tone!) is PERFECTLY EXECUTED. Stepwise bass line (D C B A# A G A B E), and some *very* unexpected harmonies for 1804 (FMM to B b9?). The resolution to E minor has to be the most perfect resolution in the history of Western music. Edit: Apparently the videos I originally linked to were Karajan’s arrangements of Beethoven symphonies, a practice I find “mildly offensive,” despite having been done by illustrious composers and conductors throughout history. This is what happens when you link to things without watching them. I may link to new recordings when I get the chance.
• Violin Concerto in d by Sibelius (Maxim Vengerov, violin with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) I II III. I saw nearly this exact setup live (different violinist, I believe) on my first trip to Chicago, the first time I ever heard the Sibelius Violin Concerto. The first chord in the orchestra is wondrous. Tchaikovsky’s own Violin Concerto in D (Ia Ib. II III) also belongs on this list. The whole first movement makes me hot.
• Mass in B Minor by Bach (Robert Shaw with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra). Need I say more (except that the Atlanta SO is one of the most underrated orchestras in America)?
• Don Giovanni (Mozart) and Tosca (Puccini) both show up, but I would prefer they were Così fan tutte, Le nozze di Figaro or Die Zauberflöte and Turandot or La Bohème. But what can you do?
• My Spanish Heart by Chick Corea. I can’t decide if I like Native Sense (with Gary Burton) better. But Chick Corea definitely rocks my jazz world (like a hurricane).

I honestly cannot believe Mahler doesn’t appear on this list anywhere. It may be for the best, as he tends to dominate my musical world. The fifth (Yoel Levi with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra), the second, fourth, and sixth (Sir Georg Solti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra), the ninth (Leonard Bernstein, Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam), or the tenth (Sir Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic). Yes, please. Rachmaninoff also tends to dominate: the All Night Vigil, the Preludes, the Piano Concerti 2 & 3 (though I tend to be more a fan of the first and third movements than the very famous second movements), and of course the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (wow) 1 2 3.

This list does reflect very well the predominance of classical music in my life and listening schedule. Of the roughly two days of music I listen to in any given seven-day period (a number which excludes podcasts and anything else I delete once I’ve listened to it), generally over 90% of it is classical¹.

I would love to see Collin do this one.

Footnotes

1. There is a decent chance this is somewhat skewed, since I tend to listen to the *same* popular music (and jazz albums) over and over again, and iTunes reasonably only counts the *last* time I listened to any given song. So, the count is probably well over 2 days of music, with a significantly higher percentage of popular music and jazz. ↩