Computed Counterpoint: Discourses of Modernist Bach Reception and Technology in the Twentieth Century

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Since the late nineteenth century, there has been a strand of reception that imagines J.S. Bach's music as proceeding,objectively, from the rules of counterpoint. Bach's instrumental works specifically are regularly lauded in 'scientific' terms.This mathematical reception has seen constant development throughout the twentieth century. Bach's association withcomputer technology and artificial intelligence is an especially interesting young field of association. The recententhusiasm in machine learning for imitating Bach's compositional style shows that a form of this discourse still holdscultural power. The purpose of this thesis is an evaluation of this reception of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach inconnection with modernism in Germany, the United Kingdom, and North America in the twentieth and twenty-firstcenturies. Scholars have acknowledged the prevalence of Bach's music in contexts of science and technology, but so farthere is no overarching cultural history of this phenomenon. This thesis endeavours to provide the first step, through amethodology that treats reception as discourse. As the prevalence of machine learning in the arts grows, the questionwhy Bach's music seems to resonate with it gives us insight into the cultural meanings of Bach, as well as the aestheticappeal of the hard sciences. Please refer to the full research proposal and OOCDTP form for a more detailed impressionof my project.