As troops move in to expel Israeli settlers from Gaza, here in Edinburgh more hopeful messages about events in the Middle East have been on show. Conflict, yes; tension, undeniably - but all of it voiced through music.
The night after playing to a rapturous Proms audience in London, Daniel Barenboim brought his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra to town. Barenboim set up the orchestra with scholar Edward Said in 1999, drawing young players from Israel and surrounding Arab countries together each summer for residential courses and a tour. They've also just released their first CD.
The programme was similar to the Proms one (Weber, Mozart, Beethoven), and so too was the reception: it's been a long time since I've heard an audience give such riotous approval to an orchestra. Classical concerts are sometimes accused of being joyless, juiceless affairs; but, as people alongside me shot up to their feet to bawl approval, it was impossible not to get swept along.
As today's Scotsman notes (registration required), the playing wasn't always supremely disciplined: tuning wobbled alarmingly, there seemed to be some dispute about whether playing in time was the thing to do, and Barenboim's surprise opening to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony - begun while he was still wandering towards the podium - caught a large percentage of the string section off-guard.
But what a fantastic, intense experience: unapologetically gutsy playing matched with a sense that conviction really can come through communication - which is, perhaps, the point of the whole exercise. The players, all in their teens, fizzed with energy, grinning unstintingly throughout and looking as if there was nowhere they'd rather be. Probably there wasn't.
Optimism about world events seems in short supply at the moment, but as the Usher Hall reverberated to whoops, foot-stamping and cheers you could be forgiven for temporarily forgetting that. Even Barenboim - who tends to cultivate an air of Beethovenesque sturm-und-drang - briefly gave up scowling to shimmy along.
