[Smt-talk] Identifying a composer's hand using statistics

[Dmitri Tymoczko]

Hi Everyone,

I have a student -- a physics grad. student, actually, with a strong  
music background -- who was interested in using statistical analysis  
to do authorial identification, somewhat in the way people have done  
with literary texts.

Question: can anyone think of an interesting piece -- say from the  
Renaissance onward -- where (1) authorship is uncertain and (2) the  
composer *might* be someone very well known (so that there is a  
substantial body of work to compare it to)?

For instance, I know there is some disagreement about Magnus Es Tu,  
Domine, which is often attributed to Josquin.

In any case, I'd like this to be more than an academic exercise, so it  
would be great to choose some piece where there's substantial doubt.

Thanks!
DT

Dmitri Tymoczko
Associate Professor of Music
310 Woolworth Center
Princeton, NJ 08544-1007
(609) 258-4255 (ph), (609) 258-6793 (fax)
http://music.princeton.edu/~dmitri