Berlin: In the most ambitious project of its type ever attempted, a computer has been set to work to complete Beethoven's unfinished 10th symphony.

Artificial intelligence has long been able to compete with the human mind at games such as chess and complex maths problems. But musicologists and computer programmers in Germany are attempting to prove it can replicate creative genius.

Composer Ludwig van Beethoven.

They plan to put the results to the test in a public performance by a symphony orchestra in Bonn, Beethoven's birthplace, next year. The project is part of celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth.

It is known that Beethoven was working on a 10th symphony in his final years from his letters and the accounts of his contemporaries.