Category: Podcast
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What does harmony really mean? Not harmony only as a musical idea, but harmony as a way of seeing life: the hidden connection between people, nature, memory, beauty, and the world around us. This new episode of Musical Poetry begins a series on harmony, inspired in part by the documentary “Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision”,…
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A quiet kind of love. In this episode of Musical Poetry, Michael Appelt brings Lord Byron’s timeless poem “She Walks in Beauty” into a new space, a reflective, 90s-inspired ballad shaped by restraint, warmth, and emotional honesty. Written in 1814, when Byron was just 26, the poem captures a fleeting moment: a woman seen in…
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A light returns. In this episode of Musical Poetry, we bring Spring Song by Paul Laurence Dunbar into a new space—carried by a warm jazz big band arrangement that lets the poem breathe, swing, and gently unfold. Written in the early years of Dunbar’s career in the 1890s, Spring Song captures a quiet and timeless…
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A haiku. Three lines. One moment. In this episode of Musical Poetry, the same poem is spoken across multiple languages: English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Persian. The journey moves toward the Middle East, ending in a quiet Persian stanza where only one word remains: Sahar – dawn. This multilingual poem reflects…
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In this episode of Musical Poetry, Michael Appelt reflects on one of the most powerful travel experiences of his life: one unforgettable week in Egypt. From the Pyramids of Giza and the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), to the monumental temples of Abu Simbel near Aswan, relocated in a remarkable UNESCO-led rescue between 1964…
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When power grows impatient with restraint, poetry remembers. This episode of Musical Poetry brings together three voices from three centuries in a single musical conversation: Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, written in the shadow of Napoleon’s fall, reflecting on power after history has passed judgment. The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats, written after the…
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These are the days between Christmas and New Year, when celebration has faded, time slows, and the future has not yet begun. In this episode of Musical Poetry, we present “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy. Written at the very end of 1900 and first published in 1901, the poem stands at the threshold between…
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The bells of war are sounding louder again and yet, have they ever really stopped? In this episode of Musical Poetry, we present Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen, one of the most powerful anti-war poems ever written. Owen wrote this poem during the First World War, after witnessing combat at close range. Before…
Michael Appelt 