Introduction

The possibility of identifying musical styles using mathematical tools is becoming key not only in musicology and the mathematical theory of music, but also in applications to music pattern recognition and automated music generation in a particular idiom. In this project we are developing a methodology related to the transition network approach developed by David Cope in his Experiments on Musical Intelligence. This extension allows, for example, the possibility of defining stylistic cells at different scales as motifs and moduli of networks at the corresponding scale. This methodology can be used to systematically study stylistic changes by means of statistical methods, and to investigate aspects of chronology.

A number of repertoires and problems are being investigated using the methodology, in particular in the disputed attribution of the harpsichord works by 'Monsieur' [Charles or Louis] Couperin; the motet 'O splendor gloriae' attributed to both John Taverner and Christopher Tye; the authorship and chronology of selected early keyboard works believed to be by Johann Sebastian Bach; and changing style in Haydn's string quartets (see https://formal-methods-in-musicology.webnode.com/projects/ for an ongoing list).