Lambert Meertens

Lambert Meertens (2020). Photo by Hevesli, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Dutch

1944

Lambert Meertens is a computer scientist who in 1968 wrote an ALGOL 60 program that composed music in a classical style. It produced his Quartet No. 1 in C major, which received a special mention in the 1968 IFIP Computer Composed Music Competition, and he later originated the programming language ABC, a predecessor of Python.

Full Bio

Lambert Meertens is a computer scientist who began his career at the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam. He was later one of the editors of the Revised Report on ALGOL 68 and originated the programming language ABC, a predecessor of Python. Today he is a professor emeritus at Utrecht University.

In 1968, on the Mathematisch Centrum's Electrologica X8 computer, Meertens wrote an ALGOL 60 program that composed music in a classical style, using rules of harmony taken from Paul Hindemith's exercise book for harmony students. The first run that was not cut short by an error produced the score of his Quartet No. 1 in C major, which received a special mention in the 1968 IFIP Computer Composed Music Competition. Het Amsterdams Strijkkwartet recorded the piece, and the collection's disc holds its first movement, an Allegro.