Fascinating, Captain.
Robert Carlberg | Seattle | 01/17/1999
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Music is a language, a language akin to mathematics, and as such is perfectly suited to being learned by the computer. Professor Cope has created EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) which analyses and imitates familiar human composers (Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven and others). Like IBM's Big Blue chess-playing computer, EMI is inching closer and closer to equalling his human models -- and the computer learns faster and remembers perfectly.Cope's first EMI disc, "Bach By Design" (1994) was all digital piano, and suffered a certain sameness of sound for it. Here he has wisely chosen human interpreters for EMI's scores, which breathes some additional life into the performances. In addition to piano (by Mary Jane Cope), one piece is performed by a Balinese gamelan orchestra, a couple feature a small string/wind ensemble, and five are by vocalist + piano. In all, this disc is an effective shot across the bow announcing that, in the not-too-distant future, computer composition won't be the novelty it is today."