Codebreaker: Celebrating the Life of Alan Turing

Apologies for the flood of blog posts these past few days. I realize it’s not good blogging etiquette to inundate your readers with hoards and hoards of text (I know it’s worse with me cause I have the tendency to waffle). However, with my papers out of the way, I’ve found some time to write again – which is exciting, because I’ve been thinking about a lot of non-school things lately.

If you haven’t figured out by now, I enjoy seeing shows and experiencing performances that move, challenge, and or inspire me. I like to take some time to step back and think about what I had just seen, and what I can take away from it. Of course, I also enjoy mindless entertainment – sometimes I desperately need it because my brain never seems to shut off. However, I’m always impressed by how many thought-provoking events I experience here in London. Not only do I enrich myself culturally, but also mentally and academically. It’s terribly exciting for a nerd like me, and I most certainly never get bored. 🙂

The concert I attended on Saturday at the Barbican – which premiered a piece written in honor of mathematician Alan Turing – was an example of these sorts of events I love, and it was special to me for a number of reasons, some of which I’ve outlined below. The discussions I had after the event with friends were incredibly fruitful as well, so I’ve included some of those notes in my reflective bit.

Programme copy

Codebreaker: The Man

Alan Turing’s been in the headlines recently, especially since he was granted a posthumous royal pardon at the end of this past year. In the entertainment world, his name has been thrown about because Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley will star in a film about his life and his work as a codebreaker during World War II (is anyone at all surprised that I can link this back to Benedict? His performance, by the way, is going to be out of this world, I know it. You can sample a bit of his Turing voice here from his letter reading at the first Letters Live event) With this year being the 60th anniversary of this brilliant man’s much too early passing, these two developments demonstrate the sheer difference in how his work’s been appreciated. Back then, he was a hero – but one who had to keep his works under wraps due to the secrecy acts – until he was found guilty of acting acts of “gross indecency”. Today, we engage with his life’s work on a daily basis – starting with the machine you’re reading this blog entry on.

Despite his contributions to science and history, I knew nothing about them, let alone who “Alan Turing” was, until last year when I heard the casting news for The Imitation Game film (hey, great things can come out of being a fan). Curious to know more, I checked out Andrew Hodges’ biography on Turing and started my research from there (I highly recommend the book by the way). I haven’t stopped since.

So… who was Alan Turing, and why is worthy of an entire orchestral piece written in his honor?

Credit: Google Images

Alan Mathison Turing was born in 1912 in London. He was an extremely precocious child; I’d also say that he was quite sassy, which reflected his extraordinary quick wit and humor. While growing up, he developed an interest in botany, thanks to the influence of a popular children’s book at the time, Natural Wonders Every Child Should Know. Despite showing an aptitude for sciences, he struggled in school – until he found a motivator, friend, and muse in a boy named Christopher Morcom. The two of them shared an intellectual capacity that demonstrated that they were far beyond their time. Unfortunately, Christopher suddenly passed away from leukemia at age 18, leaving Alan quite distraught and devastated. However, he became determined to finish the work Christopher couldn’t – and poured himself into his studies at King’s College at Cambridge. Whilst serving as a fellow at King’s and researching on a fellowship at Princeton University, he developed his scientific and mathematical theories that led to his eventual idea of the Universal Turing Machine: a single machine that could do any well-defined task once supplied with the appropriate program. In other words, he had developed the ideas of a mechanical, general use computer – as computers back then were actually people, not machines.

His intelligence and ability to handle numbers certainly caught the attention of some people – including the British government. When World War II rolled around, Turing was hired to join the codebreaking team at Bletchley Park, then the top-secret headquarters for the Government Code and Cypher School. While there, he helped decipher German Enigma codes that revealed army/naval whereabouts and movements, and plans of future attacks. To expedite the process of deciphering the numerous messages being intercepted, Turing devised the bombe machine, which was able to break an Enigma message by guessing a small portion of plain text correctly. Meanwhile, folks felt that German naval codes were particularly the hardest the decipher – but once left in Turing’s capable hands, he was able to crack the system. Historians say that the work completed at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, his colleagues, and the number of folks who worked there – a large amount of them were women, as the men were off fighting – helped shorten the duration of the war by two years, thus saving countless number of lives. He was awarded an OBE for his work during the war.

After the war, Turing worked at Manchester University, where he worked tirelessly with the mathematics and logic schemes that would pave the way for not only the creation of computers, but also artificial intelligence. He also worked on the idea of morphogenesis, which demonstrated a fusion of his childhood interest in biology and his professional field of mathematics. Needless to say, though probably unbeknownst to many at the time, Turing was a genius with an incredible amount of potential.

This potential, however, was curtailed by a police inquiry and eventual arrest. Turing came to trial in March 1952 for committing acts of “gross indecency” with other men, terms which were outlined in Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885. Turing did not deny or defend his actions; he said that he saw no wrong in what he had done. As punishment, he was sentenced to a term in prison or to undergo a year’s period of hormonal treatment. He agreed to the latter, though he realized that the injection of synthetic estrogen would change him. The conviction also led to the revocation of his OBE and his security clearance by the British government, and the severing of his ties with the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), which evolved from the GCCS at Bletchley. For whatever reason, the government also feared for him to be a security threat, even a KGB double agent. As such, his travels were severely restricted.

Yet despite the persecution, Turing continued his work, albeit with some difficulty. His colleagues remarked that everything seemed to be fine, and that he was in good spirits after the conviction. However, on 8 June 1954, Turing’s housekeeper found him dead in his room. The coroner’s report stated that his death was caused by cyanide poisoning. At the scene, investigators found a bitten apple, and while the apple was never tested for chemicals, many believe that that was how Turing ingested the cyanide to commit suicide (a scene very reminiscent of Snow White, a story which Turing was reported to have enjoyed). Yet suicide isn’t the agreed upon verdict. Turing’s mother believed he had accidentally come into contact with cyanide due to his disorganization of lab equipment; Jack Copeland, a Turing biographer, believes that he inhaled cyanide fumes. Meanwhile, Andrew Hodges believes that Turing set up the scene to tell a different story to his actual cause of death.

With his cremated ashes scattered and gone, the world carried on, unaware of Turing’s contributions to the course of human history. Not even his own mother knew of the extraordinary work he did for the British government during the war due to the secrecy acts. However, with the lifting of the Official Secrets Act in the 1970s, the public started to realize what an important figure Turing was. Unfortunately, this came all a bit too late.

Codebreaker: The Concert

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 Winston Churchill’sChamberlain’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 Enigma 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 snippets 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.