Today we have the privilege of speaking With the ghost or if you will the spirit of Ludwig van Beethoven —arguably the greatest composer of all time.Ghost  soundMaestro Beethoven, thank you for joining us. Could you be...

And here, right on time is the ghost of maestro Haydn to tell us about his story - his life and his music - Maestro Haydn, why don't you start at the be ginning.Certainly, Herr Bartley. I, Joseph Haydn, vas born in 1732 in ...

GavotteWelcome to celebrate creativity - in ze past few episodes, I'm afraid I've been a bit off in ze numbering of episodes - this is actually ze fourth season, and I believe that this is episode 483 - now we began this episo...

I have the ghost of Herr Bach right here - Frst could you tell us about your early life and family.Herr Bartley, I vas born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany. My family had been musicians for generations: orga...

Host: Welcome to the "Echoes of Genius series” -  the podcast where we explore the lives and legacies of the greatest classical composers.  This is episode 480 - Red Priest Rising.  The music that you have heard at the beginni...

First I have a confession to make. I plan to do an episode regarding a musician every day, but my right hand started hurting and I mean excruciating painful. I worried about what to do, and realized if I continue to overdo it on an already i...

This is the first of what I hope to be a series of 25 podcast episodes regarding some of the most influential and creative musicians prior to the 1900s - all ranked chronologically - then the following month, I will deal to some of the most ...

Well, I checked my stats for Celebrate Creativity and I am now just 7 downloads 25,000 downloads in 100 countries and territories - something I could have never envisioned five years ago when I started this podcast as Celebrate Poe.  An...

Spring intro“Welcome, my friends, to The Microphone Episode. Yes, this is the one where the.  greatest composers of all time—individuals who shuffled off their mortal coil long ago—are handed a microphone for the very firs...

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity - Episode 475 - Echoes of Horror  Man is capable of tremendous atrocities against other individuals. An example is The Great Chinese Famine (1959-1961): This was a period of mass starvatio...

When people talk about the most successful writers of all time, one name is almost always among the first: J. K. Rowling. The author of the Harry Potter series didn’t just sell books — she created a cultural earthquake. For millions of readers,...

Toni Morrison shows us that literature can be both beautiful and necessary. That stories, especially the hard ones, can teach us how to see, how to remember, and maybe even how to heal.Morrison's importance stems from several key asp...

"Before Narnia ever existed, C.S. Lewis had a secret weapon: a band of Oxford friends who argued, challenged, and inspired him—the Inklings."Think C.S. Lewis wrote The Chronicles of Narnia all by himself? Think again. Lewis was part ...

=Eugene O'Neill's development as a playwright was deeply rooted in his turbulent personal life and a deliberate rejection of the popular theater of his time. He evolved from a young man adrift to become a revolutionary force in American dram...

The subject of today's podcast, Oscar Wilde is extremely important because of his efforts in making wit an art form. His plays — such as The Importance of Being Earnest — are still laugh-out-loud funny more than a century later, which almost...

Leo Tolstoy is Russia’s other literary giant — a master of epic storytelling, moral inquiry, and psychological insight. His genius lies in observing the human soul with relentless curiosity, asking the questions every creative mind wrestles ...

In the previous episode, we walked with Walt Whitman down the open roads of America, hearing the chorus of ordinary lives. Now we cross continents and step into the narrow corridors of the human soul with Fedor Dostoevsky—where freedom and c...

Walt Whitman’s writing helped to capture and define the spirit of the growing United States during the challenging 1800s. He had a bold and unusual way of writing that created a new artistic style for America. Whitman's importance comes from...

Within the past few days, this podcast has dealt with Victor Hugo, Jonathan Swift, and Edgar Allan Poe - all these individuals were giants who challenged the status quo, but in vastly different ways. Today I would like to add Henry David Tho...

First you might ask - why should I read Victor Hugo.  Well I'm glad you asked.  You see, Reading Victor Hugo is an immersive and profound experience.  But before we deal into Les Miserables, I want to say a little bit about hi...

I can't believe it, but we are halfway through the list of writers.   I have at least 13 of the 25 writers on the list finished - and today is Charles Dickens.Now, Charles Dickens was a brilliant storyteller, a powerful voice fo...

Imagine this: William Wordsworth, in the early 1800s, walking the hills of England’s Lake District. He stops to watch a field of daffodils swaying in the breeze, and suddenly, the moment becomes eternal. For Wordsworth, nature is not just scene...

What if I told you one of the most famous writers in history calmly suggested… eating babies?Here's the situation: You’re sitting down with a brand-new pamphlet in Dublin, 1729. The author, Jonathan Swift, is proposing a solution to ...

Now, Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, was a prolific and multi-talented English writer, journalist, and spy, whose life was as adventurous as his most famous characters. Born Daniel Foe around 1660 in London to a family of Dissen...

"Darkness visible — a phrase that captures the paradox of John Milton’s life: eventual blindness in body, yet vision without bounds in the mind.”"Imagine a world gone dark — yet in that darkness, a man named John Milton could see mor...