When Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827, he was three years removed from the completion of his Ninth Symphony, a work heralded by many as his magnum opus. He had started work on his 10th Symphony but, due to deteriorating health, wasn't able to make much headway: all he left behind were some musical sketches. Ever since then, Beethoven fans and musicologists have puzzled and lamented over what could have been. His notes teased at some magnificent reward, albeit one that seemed forever out of reach. Now, thanks to the work of a team of music historians, musicologists, composers and computer scientists, Beethoven's vision will come to life.

When Ludwig von Beethoven died in 1827, he was three years removed from the completion of his Ninth Symphony, a work heralded by many as his magnum opus. He had started work on his 10th Symphony but, due to deteriorating health, wasn't able to make much headway: All he left behind were some musical sketches. Ever since then, Beethoven fans and musicologists have puzzled and lamented over what could have been. His notes teased at some magnificent reward, albeit one that seemed forever out of reach. Now, thanks to the work of a team of music historians, musicologists, composers, and computer scientists, Beethoven's vision will come to life.

When Ludwig von Beethoven died in 1827, he was three years removed from the completion of his Ninth Symphony, a work heralded by many as his magnum opus. He had started work on his Tenth Symphony but, due to deteriorating health, wasn't able to make much headway: All he left behind were some musical sketches. Ever since then, Beethoven fans and musicologists have puzzled and lamented over what could have been. His notes teased at some magnificent reward, albeit one that seemed forever out of reach. Now, thanks to the work of a team of music historians, musicologists, composers and computer scientists, Beethoven's vision will come to life. I presided over the artificial intelligence side of the project, leading a group of scientists at the creative A.I. startup Playform AI that taught a machine both Beethoven's entire body of work and his creative process.

Artificial intelligence technology has completed Beethoven's previously incomplete Tenth Symphony. Next month, 194 years after the composer's death, the work will be performed for the first time in Germany. Ludwig van Beethoven's final orchestral composition, Symphony No. 9 in D minor, was debuted in 1824. In the latter years of his life, Beethoven began work on what would have been his tenth symphony. However, due to ill health, he was only able to complete a few musical sketches before dying in 1827 at the age of 56.

Few symphonies are as well-known as Beethoven's Ninth, an assertion supported by the fact that it's no doubt playing in your head even as you read this. Few symphonies are less well-known -- at least by Beethoven's standards -- than his Tenth, primarily because he never actually got the thing finished. He did make a start on it, however, and at his death in 1827 left behind notes and drafts composed alongside the Ninth, which had also been commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Society. Such is Beethoven's stature that his enthusiasts have been speculating ever since on what his incomplete symphony would sound like if completed, employing any techniques to do so that their time put at hand. "In 1988, musicologist Barry Cooper ventured to complete the first and second movements," writes Rutgers University Art & AI Lab director Ahmed Elgammal at The Conversation.