Computer-generated Piece for Viola d'amore and Harpsichord

Of all places to encounter a piece for viola d'amore: I found this on Andrew Sullivan's blog. It is a computer-generated piece for harpsichord and viola d'amore "written" by the Iamus computer.



Upon first hearing I was rather impressed that a computer, given certain bits of information about the instrument, could generate a piece that could be played on the viola d'amore. I imagine that if you feed in information about the more resonant pitches, the better double stops, and possible harmonics, and pepper it with a few textural techniques (like trilling, tremolo, harmonics), and you introduce ideas of imitation and a sense of form (probably pre-programmed into the Iamus machine), it would not be rocket science (or maybe it would be) to randomly generate a piece like this.

What makes the piece seem successful is Sviatoslav Belonogov's excellent viola d'amore playing and Gustavo Dias Jerez's excellent harpsichord playing (and obvious love of the medium). If this "test" proves anything, it is that it is the musicians who "make" the music out of what composers write. Lesser musicians, or musicians less vested in the uniqueness of the experiment, wouldn't do squat for this assortment of musical patterns.

A second hearing (without watching) revealed a few accidental instances of interesting tone color interplay between the harpsichord and the viola d'amore (I attribute them, however, to the musicians doing the playing), but for me it revealed that there isn't much that I would consider "musical" in the piece itself.

Listen twice, and see what you think.