Codebreaker

James McCarthy’s acclaimed cantata dramatically recounts key episodes in the story of Alan Turing, the Second World War codebreaker, brilliant mathematician, and ‘father of modern computer science’. In bold musical contrasts of dynamic energy and pathos, the score portrays Turing both as hero and outsider, a gay man of complex inner being inseparable from his genius, yet one who was destroyed by the unforgiving homophobia of his time.

James McCarthy’s Codebreaker dramatically recounts key episodes in the story of Alan Turing, whose work at Bletchley Park decrypting the naval Enigma codes helped save countless lives during the Second World War, and whose legacy endures in our contemporary digital culture transformed by computer science. Turing is recalled as a brilliant mathematician, pioneer and prophet. Above all, in a score conceived in bold contrasts of pathos and dynamic energy, he is remembered as a suffering individual, an outsider destroyed by the unforgiving public prejudice of his time, yet whose complex and sensitive inner being was inseparable from his genius. On the cusp of a twenty-first century revolution in artificial intelligence, the passionate, accessible and visionary music of Codebreaker urges us all to regret past misunderstandings, be vigilant against lingering bigotries, and simply to hold in reverence Turing’s inspiring achievement, while wondering at the cruel betrayal of an ordinary-extraordinary man who was also a profound benefactor to humankind.