Do we need genius robots?



This SoundNotion.tv report is essential viewing from 32.30"

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Philip Amos said…
Just a few points. First, thank you for alerting me to SoundNotion.tv. And then, I started wondering how many years it's been since a discussion this generally intelligent, a conversation, a true dialectic, has been heard on BBC3.

With regard to the main question, I picture most people listening to the computer playing the Goldberg out of curiosity and then moving on. If it did indeed play the work like Gould, the point would escape me altogether, though they did well to constantly invoke Gould's name, for his obsession with the perfect recording suggests one performance fixed in time, which I take it is what the computer 'performance' would also be.

That brings to mind those artists -- Curzon, Serkin, et al. -- who had to be dragged to the studio, or Celibidache, who wouldn't record in a studio at all, because the idea of a fixed performance was alien to them. And so, we have fixed performances from Gould and a computer, but I think there are few of us who would not turn to Perahia, Hewitt, Tureck et al. for greatly varied performances, and the concert hall where inspiration of the moment (notable with Arrau, Cherkassky, though I'm straying from the Goldberg again here) may make for magic moments.

So, no, we don't NEED genius robots. But I was delighted that your blog was mentioned and given due credit in the discussion, Bob, and in tones of such well-deserved respect.
2:41 pm
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