AI yields pictures of Gustav Mahler conducting

AI yields pictures of Gustav Mahler conducting

Why Mahler

norman lebrecht

October 22, 2023

The only two known photographs of Mahler in action were taken from the rear, at concerts in Strasbourg and Munich.

Artificial Intelligence has been put to work by an orchestra in Krefeld, Germany. This is what is has created.

Hmmmm.

 

 

Comments

  • Jerry says:

    This is…artificial.

  • Interesting baton technique says:

    For people concerned about the varying amount of fingers, just know that AI really is not good when it comes to fingers…

    • Garry Humphreys says:

      Never mind the fingers – look at the button holes in his lapels: one pic has none, another has one (in the usual place), another has six (three on each lapel)! Perhaps he had to keep changing his coat because of perspiration? Rather exciting pics though!

  • Herbie G says:

    …and it won’t be long before AI will create the complete sound recording of that concert, and a handful of new Mahler symphonies.

  • Christopher Stager says:

    He looks just like Robert Powell!

  • Cynical Bystander says:

    No doubt the images will be marketised to sell some Audi EV or an I_phone? I mean what is an image, however digitised, for other than to be monetised?
    “Hi, my name is Gustav and I want to share with you the life enhancing richness of my 100MP phone which makes me look if not exactly feel alive My entire creative output available with just one click to share with you millions of TikTok friends. No, Britney has not recorded my latest hitz”

  • Micaelo Cassetti says:

    With that sort of artistic ability, AI is surely destined for courtroom sketching…

  • Richard Kiel says:

    But there are drawings of Mahler conducting:
    Böhler, Otto (1914) Dr. Otto Böhler’s Schattenbilder, Vienna, Austria: Wilhelm Lechner, pp. 20, III

  • Raymond Lindsay says:

    I don’t know….looks a little contemporary, with the smile & all

  • Mark says:

    In one of the images, he’s holding the baton as if to make a downward stabbing motion.

  • Greg says:

    Love the last image. We need more pics of Mahler laughing. Even when AI completes Mahler’s tenth I’m still holding on to my Deryck Cooke.

  • Guest says:

    In the early 1900s a German silhouette artist named Otto Bohler did a series of silhouettes of Mahler conducting. They give a good idea of the energy he must have brought to the podium. They can be seen by googling: Bohler Mahler

  • Laurent1 says:

    Seems like the picture with a smile (so un-Mahler…) was forged after a pix of James Levine…!

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