Francis Humphreys
speaker
112 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 6 Jun
Francis Humphreys’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.
Appearances
You've been very successful over the years, and I'm wondering, how do you persuade sometimes internationally acclaimed musicians to make that journey to West Cork?
Yes, it's a long journey for most of them, but they stay.
I insist that they stay for at least five days, and I think for many musicians, unpacking and sitting down...
And meeting all their friends.
String quartets love it because they normally do concerts without other string quartets.
So it's great for them to come here and meet with their colleagues from all over the world.
And West Cork, who would turn down an invitation to come to West Cork and play in Bantry House, you know?
Now, I'm going to play some snatches of music that you have suggested to us, and we'll play a little first, and then you can tell us the history of that particular piece of music and how it relates to our theme.
So, first of all, this is a piece from Prokofiev.
Now that's just a tiny snatch of the piece.
When was that composed?
He wrote that between 1938 and 1946, so actually right during the war.
And I think that last movement to me is saying, thank God it's all over.
and let's try and live life again.
So it was written with the clouds of war gathering at the beginning, and then the end was in sight at the end.
I think the end was gone, but of course, it being Stalin's Russia, things weren't exactly pleasurable for intellectuals and composers and musicians.
He gave them a very rough time.
Once during the war, he kind of let them do their thing,
But once the war was over, things started to get tough again.
And Prokofiev there is trying to put a brave face on it.
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