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“Beethoven 200 – Artistic Intelligence” brings Beethoven’s musical legacy into dialogue with the technology of our time. Marking the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death, this artistic and technological project takes his 32 piano sonatas as its starting point: a central part of his life’s work. In collaboration with Yamaha, the project will use modern technology to explore the distinctive qualities of Beethoven’s musical language and the many ways in which his music can be interpreted.
Artificial intelligence will be used to compare pianists’ playing styles, interpretations and expressive choices. As well as identifying musical patterns, the AI will examine how musicians approach a work today, how interpretations take shape and what gives each performance its individual character. Can AI learn from this process and enter into an artistic dialogue with musicians, even interacting with them directly on stage? The 32 piano sonatas provide the project’s artistic and research framework: a tribute to Beethoven, a reflection of contrasting interpretations and a way to explore how tradition, human creativity and artificial intelligence might relate to one another in the future.
Selected young pianists work with internationally renowned professors and artists on passages from Beethoven’s sonatas. Their playing is recorded before, during and after these sessions, allowing the AI to trace how interpretation, expression and playing style evolve through artistic exchange.
Academy
A pianist takes the stage with AI as a musical partner. In a work for two pianists, the human performer plays one part while an AI system plays the other. The AI listens in real time and responds to tempo, dynamics, articulation and phrasing, creating a direct musical dialogue between human and machine.
Programme
The public technology forum brings together music, research and technology. Experts in AI research, musicology and technology present the project’s initial findings and discuss the possibilities, limitations and new questions arising from collaboration between humans and artificial intelligence. The forum concludes with a live performance of the duet for pianist and AI.
Programme
All 32 of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonatas will be performed in full, in chronological order, over just two days. Emerging international talents, renowned pianists and professors bring to life Beethoven’s musical development, from the early sonatas to his late works. These performances will also be recorded using the Yamaha Disklavier and analysed by AI, creating an extensive dataset on Beethoven’s complete piano sonatas and the different ways they are interpreted today.
Programme