The Proms will celebrate the 200th year of Wagner's birth with performances of his Ring cycle by Staatskapelle Berlin, conducted by Isreali-Argentine DanielBarenboim.
And there is a somewhat moist-eyed account of a peace symposium convened by the conductor DanielBarenboim that called for more European mediation a call in which one cannot help but hear a subconscious lament by the eminent and worldly participants that Jerusalem and Damascus were not more like Vienna and Paris in the first place.