> Creativity and purposeful manipulation of human emotions are orthogonal concerns, even if often bundled together under the term "creativity" in context of arts.
No, absolutely not, I disagree. If we know that a piece of music is generated by software algorithms, it instantly loses any real meaning.
> To disentangle them I propose a simple test: take these 'impressive algorithmic compositions that resemble the works of J.S. Bach' and play them to people, telling them they were composed by a gifted human. Then ask what they think of their creativity, and of emotions the author intended to communicate.
The problem here is you are lying to people in order to achieve an effect. Deception has been known to cause a significant backlash amongst music fans [1]
There are enough music fans out there that will honestly want to know whether the music was created by a human or a computer program. If it ever becomes common place that procedurally generated music is misrepresented as the works of a human or group of humans, then there is a large segment of the population that will turn their noses up, and only listen to live music, where it is apparent that the music is performed by humans.
The rest of the audience, meh, if they want to hear meaning in music composed by machines, that's their prerogative I suppose. Most people I know who actually play instruments or sing are appalled by the idea, or at best, slightly bemused.
I will assert, those who have never stepped away from their computer keyboard long enough to have taken a deep breath, stood in front of a microphone, plucked an electric guitar at high volume or smashed drum skins with sticks in front of a live audience of 100 to 1000 cheering people may just be incapable of understanding this. The feeling in the air can be electric.
Humans connecting with other humans through the creation and reception of music will never be correctly emulated or simulated through silicon, no matter how good the facsimile.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milli_Vanilli