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
Well, the next piece of music that we're going to play a little of was actually composed by a prisoner of war.
Have a listen to this from Messin.
And that's a little snatch of Messin's End of Time.
Tell me about its composition, Francis.
It's an extraordinary story because Messiaen was enlisted in 1940 and was captured when, you know, France surrendered quite quickly after the German invasion.
And he was trekked off to a prisoner of war camp in Silesia in Poland where the temperature was minus 25 degrees in the winter.
When that was performed, its premier was in the prison camp.
in January 1941.
So at minus 35 degrees.
I don't know.
To be honest, I don't know how the musicians managed with their fingers because you need your fingers when you're playing a violin or a cello or indeed the clarinet and the piano.
The long story is about that extraordinary event.
It was played in front of 400 prisoners of war
with the German guards amongst them, of course.
And Messiaen wrote afterwards, he said he'd never been received in such respectful silence.
So, yeah, it's a great story.
It's an extraordinary scene.
I can see it in my mind's eye, the serried ranks of the prisoners sitting down and surrounded by guards.
Obviously, the officers in the front row listening to, you know, from pole position listening to the music up close.
Actually, Pat, the people in the front row were on stretchers.
Showing 41–60 of 112 · page 3 of 6
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