A composer put Einstein's equations and AI into orchestral music. The result is surprisingly moving.

Key points

• Robert Laidlow's debut album on NMC Records uses Einstein's field equations, Newton's universal law and artificial intelligence as foundations for orchestral compositions.
• The BBC Philharmonic, conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni and pianist Joseph Havlat perform the works, joined by the Piatti Quartet.
• Warp, a terse 12-minute piano concerto, is built around a musical interpretation of Einstein's equations describing how mass bends space and time.
• Laidlow works across science and classical music, and the record is described as wildly imaginative while staying approachable.

When composers reach for inspiration, love and grief are the reliable defaults. Robert Laidlow chose Einstein's field equations, the mathematical rules describing how mass warps space and time.

The result is Warp, a tense 12-minute piece anchoring his debut on NMC Records, performed by the BBC Philharmonic with conductor Vimbayi Kaziboni and soloist Joseph Havlat.

Orchestral lines spiral upward, instruments pushed to their limits, while the piano holds its own course and eventually arrives somewhere calm. Laidlow isn't illustrating an equation. He's doing something closer to mapping what it feels like to move through bent space.

Artificial intelligence, the technology behind systems like ChatGPT that learn patterns from data and generate outputs, appears elsewhere on the record as subject matter, alongside Newton's universal law of gravitation. Laidlow treats these ideas the way other composers treat seasons or saints: as emotional territory worth exploring in sound.

The Guardian reviewed the record, noting the concepts are complex but the music stays approachable throughout.

That accessibility matters more than it might seem. Classical music with a scientific concept attached can easily become a gimmick, a press release dressed in strings. Laidlow avoids that. The ideas are starting points, not the sales pitch. The BBC Philharmonic's playing is vibrantly detailed, and the recording is clean and generous, giving the ensemble room to breathe.

Does this tell us anything useful about how AI is being used in the arts?

Yes, though not in the way you'd expect. Laidlow isn't using AI to compose. He's composing about AI, treating it as a subject serious enough to sit alongside Einstein and Newton. That's a different kind of cultural signal. It suggests the technology has moved from novelty to subject matter, something artists feel compelled to reckon with rather than simply use as a tool.

For listeners who've never sat through a modern orchestral piece, this record is a reasonable place to start. The ambition is genuine, and so is the welcome.

What to listen for: the moment in Warp where the orchestral pressure peaks and the piano simply refuses to be swallowed.