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

自19世纪末以来，一直有一种观点认为巴赫的音乐是客观地从对位规则出发的。巴赫的器乐作品经常被冠以“科学”的称号。这种数学上的接受在整个二十世纪不断发展。巴赫与计算机技术和人工智能的联系是一个特别有趣的年轻领域。最近对模仿巴赫作曲风格的机器学习的热情表明，这种话语的一种形式仍然具有文化力量。本论文的目的是评价约翰·塞巴斯蒂安·巴赫的音乐在二十世纪和二十一世纪在德国、英国和北美与现代主义的联系。学者们已经承认巴赫音乐在科学和技术背景下的流行，但到目前为止，还没有关于这一现象的总体文化史。本文试图通过将接受视为话语的方法论来提供第一步。随着机器学习在艺术领域的普及，为什么巴赫的音乐似乎与之产生共鸣的问题让我们深入了解巴赫的文化意义，以及硬科学的美学吸引力。请参阅完整的研究计划和OOCDTP表格，以了解我的项目的更详细的印象。

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.