Codebreaker: The Concert

Recently, it was reported on Twitter that Benedict had attended the world premiere of James McCarthy’s “Codebreaker” piece at the Barbican. Considering the piece was in honor of Alan Turing, and Benedict is playing the mathematician in The Imitation Game, his spot in the audience shouldn’t have come as a surprise (or at least it wasn’t to me). Coincidentally, I also attended the concert, and really enjoyed it. Because of the interest in the performance, I’ve been asked to share some thoughts, which I’ve posted below.

Note: the following is an excerpt from my blog post I published on my travel blog, The Soul of London. It’s a bit of shameless self-promotion, but if you’re interested in keeping up to date with my adventures around London, do check it out!

Having read both the Hodges and Copeland biographies over the summer (and watched Breaking the Code with Derek Jacobi, which left me emotionally devastated for about 24 hours), I came to England on an Alan Turing kick (which still exists more or less). Since my arrival in the UK, I’ve been to the Science Museum’s exhibition on Turing (now closed – which I guess is good for me, seeing as I had an emotional breakdown in front of Turing’s letter written to Mrs. Morcom after Christopher’s death), his memorial up in Sackville Park in Manchester, and Bletchley Park (I hope to make another visit when the renovations are complete in the summer, even if this means crying in front of his teddy bear, Porgy, again). His character and work have never ceased to amaze me. You certainly begin to wonder what he would have achieved had he lived longer.

While on Twitter one day back in February or so, the wonderful account Alan Turing Years tweeted about a Barbican event featuring Alan Turing. Featuring the Hertfordshire Choir, the event would premiere a new piece that honored Turing’s life and work. Intrigued, I booked a ticket – even though I had something going on that night already (I immediately returned that ticket. So glad I did).

The concert also featured other pieces of music, which helped set the scene for the themes present in the Codebreaker piece. The evening opened with Mendelssohn’s “The Hebrides Overture (Fingal’s Cave),” which was chosen for its reminiscence of seascapes – the terrain or “battleground” where the codes Turing had to break originated from.

The next piece was Beethoven’s “Meeresstille und glückliche Fahrt (Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage).” The piece’s choral arrangement are based off verses given and dedicated to Beethoven by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. These stanzas inspired Mendelssohn’s creation of his overture with the same name. 70 years later, Elgar quoted Mendelssohn in the 13th variation of his Enigma Variations. The connection is a bit long-winded, but at least it’s there – and it gave us a chance to hear the choir before they sang the Codebreaker piece. (Video below features the Monteverdi Choir)

The last piece to close off the first section of the evening was Vaughan Williams’ “Toward the Unknown Region.” Finding inspiration in Walt Whitman’s poems and words, the piece highlights an age of exploration – which Turing very much helped pioneer in his own field. (Video features vocals from the Hertfordshire Choir)

Codebreaker: The Piece

Rather than taking an pure descriptive approach to explaining who Alan Turing was as a person, Codebreaker approached the music from his own perspective. In other words, each element aimed to express Turing’s thoughts and emotions. Codebreaker can be seen as a piece with three acts, which reflect the three critical points in Turing’s personal development: Christopher Morcom and his impact on Alan Turing; the war years; and the trial and its aftermath.

The libretto came from a multitude of sources, including words from Turing, his mother (which were exclusively sung by a soprano soloist), Gordon Brown’s 2009 apology on behalf of the British government, and a number of poems (especially from American poet Sara Teasdale). There was also a musical interlude featuring Chamberlain’s radio message of Britain’s declaration of war against Germany.

Because these words were set alongside an original musical track, I obviously can’t share or even reproduce the orchestration for you. However, to give you a sense of the feelings behind each act, here are the poems which featured in the libretto:

Act One – Alan & Christopher

• Words from Sara Turing (reproduced below)
• “Song of Songs”, Wilfred Owen
• “Deep in the Night” (From “Rivers of the Sea”), Sara Teasdale
• “Enough”, Sara Teasdale

“At boarding school, Alan met a boy; Christopher Morcom. Christopher had a beautiful mind. They shared a passion for science and would map the universe together. Christopher was the love of his life.”

“Christopher Morcom died very suddenly of tuberculosis. He was just 18. Alan was devastated. Bereft. He said: “I feel I shall meet him again somewhere and that there will be some work for us to do together. But now that I am left to do it alone I must not let him down. I shall miss his face so, and the way he used to smile at me sideways.””

(x)

Act Two – The War Years

• “At Sea”, Sara Teasdale
• “There Will Come Soft Rains”, Sara Teasdale

Act Three – The Trial & His Death

• Words from Sara Turing (reproduced below)
• “De Profundis”, Oscar Wilde (adapted to poem)
• “Dip the apple in the brew, let the sleeping death seep through’ – Snow White
• “Lights Out”, Edward Thomas
• “A Mother’s Lament for the Death of Her Son”, Robert Burns
• “If Death is Kind”, Sara Teasdale

“My son was arrested in 1952. For an affair with a young man. The magistrate offered a choice of sentence: prison or chemical castration. Alan chose the later.”

(x)

Codebreaker: Decipherment

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from the concert, though I had a few personal reservations. First, apart from soundtrack scores, modern “classical” music has been somewhat of a hit or miss for me. I think it’s because I’ve listened to a lot of pieces that sounded like the composers were trying too hard to be the next Beethoven or Mozart or Chopin. Second, for whatever reason, I have difficulty with choral music. It’s not that I don’t like it; there is something very beautiful about the human body making music on its own. I guess I just have a difference in opinion as to how lines can be sung. But then again, that’s where the artistry comes in, isn’t it? Nevertheless, I did my best to sit back and let the music take over, shielding my thoughts from the fact that 1) I was up in the first row (didn’t ever think G would start the alphabet); 2) a mouse had ran across the floor during the first act of “Codebreaker”, and 3) two notable thespians who I adore were sitting in the audience with us (I’ll… let you guess who they were 😉 ).

I’ll be flat out to lay out my reaction to the piece: I sniffled. I cried. I felt my heart swell with such emotion that it could burst from my rib cage. Even if I had not known the story of Alan Turing before coming, I would have probably had the same reaction. Codebreaker was a beautiful tribute to the life of a genius.

I like music that tells stories, or conjures up certain emotions. While the programme notes and the themes from the first three pieces helped facilitate some image creation in my head, the music spoke for itself. The ever-present tinkling of the xylophone (along with the plucking of stringed instruments) embodied traces of the Engima machine, the act of decoding, and the future murmurs of computer science. I could feel the warmth and excitement of the relationship between Alan and Christopher through the melody lines, and could equally feel the devastation of the news of Christopher’s death in the soprano soloist’s mournful recollection of Alan’s thoughts. The poetry paired with the music perfectly enhanced the ups and downs in the trajectory of Turing’s life, albeit these were select moments of a life that spanned for about 42 years.

This was one of my few criticisms of Codebreaker:the three acts focused on snippits of his life. The trailer for the music suggested that one didn’t have to know who Alan Turing was in order to enjoy the concert. I agree to some extent – but I felt that this would result in walking away with an emotional portrait of Alan Turing. This isn’t a bad thing; I am very much an advocate for getting that side of someone’s personality as well as understanding their resume of achievements. However, the question of “Why is he important, and why should he be honored?” seemed to go a bit unanswered. Without direct reference to his work, whether it’s codebreaking during the war or his mathematical theories that lay the foundation for computer science and artificial intelligence, it was difficult to assess Turing’s importance as a historical figure. Also, because of the focus on the heart over the mind, the piece came across as more of a tragedy. While I personally like melancholic and sadder pieces of music, I had hoped to walk away with a small sense of hope or happiness. Though there’s no denying that Turing’s life was tragic, I’d like to think that it was more dotted with sad moments rather than running as a consistent theme.

It was clearly evident that James McCarthy, the composer, was influenced by Andrew Hodges biography on Turing. One of the ideas in the book is that without Christopher Morcom, Alan Turing wouldn’t have become the genius he is now known to be. Morcom was not only an intellectual sparring partner, but also a kindred spirit who Turing confided in and loved dearly. Being a romantic, I think your first love sticks with you forever – and Hodges’ thesis certainly fits that. As such, while I couldn’t identify a musical “theme” for Christopher, his memory appeared at the beginning and end of the piece with the words “We shall be happy.” The end proved to be more bittersweet, with the words “for the dead are free” attached to the “We shall be happy” phrase. It demonstrated that Alan and Christopher could be reunited in death after both of their much-too-short lives here on Earth.

Naturally, with the emotional load of this concert, I’ve thought a lot on Turing’s life and his achievements for a few days after the event. Having recently blogged about my worries of digitization and the seemingly on-its-way-to-becoming-obsolete practice of letter writing, I now take a look at the opposite viewpoint on technology. It’s amazing how far technology has advanced over the past few decades. Part of me wonders, though, if it would have progressed faster had Turing been alive for longer. Another part of my brain goes off to imagine what he’d say about the prevalence of computer technology in our day to day lives. I bet he would have marveled at the Internet. At the same time, I wonder what he would have to say about privacy and hacking, Wikileaks, and the mass shift towards everything running on computers. He was certainly not just an intellectual who holed himself in his study; he had his political and philosophical views, and defended them (for example, during the war, he publicly sponsored the idea of bringing Jewish refugees to the United Kingdom). I’m therefore sure he would have had something to say about all the news surrounding government surveillance and technology. Sadly, it’s impossible to have the answers to such questions. At the very least, we can appreciate his life’s work every time we log onto the computer or use our smartphone devices.

Overall, I feel immensely privileged that I got to be there that evening. I hope more people can hear the music – which may become a reality, as the programme was recorded – and, more importantly, learn about the life and achievements of Alan Turing. I’m sure with the tributes that are to come, including a Pet Shop Boys Proms performance of their tribute piece and the release of the hotly-anticipated film The Imitation Game, Turing will become a household name around the world. While such recognition comes several decades too late, I guess it’s better late than never.

Written by a_shibs on 29 April 2014. 1 comment »
Category: History, Music
Tags: Barbican, Benedict Cumberbatch, Concert, Enigma, Music, The Imitation Game, Turing