Dmitri Shostakovich, the Russian composer who wrote in the shadow of the dictatorial reigns of Vladmir Lenin and Josef Stalin, understood the power of music as those who did not live under such cultural and political restraints can.  He used his music to express, clandestinely, his view of the regime  In his memoir, Testimony, he states, "I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the [his] Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about."
     When Shostakovich released his Fifth Symphony, pundits and leaders throughout the Soviet government praised it.  For them, it fit the national mood, the Russian people then laboring (although no one would dare acknowledge it) under the oppressive policies, pogroms, and purges of Stalin.  In truth, as we now know from the quote above, Shostakovich actually wrote the Fifth as a veiled commentary on what he considered to be the debased witness of the prevailing order.  He knew the power of music better than anyone could have imagined.
     So it was that conductor Daniel Barenboim in 2008 presented a concert of young Israeli and Palestinian youth in Jerusalem.  Though he knew he could not resolve the political divisions, he knew that he could, as he put it, "bring music" to the land.  Just as Shostakovich's Fifth inspired Russians who understood it, so did Barenboim's action inspire, if only for a few moments, those who were trying to think beyond the immediate conflict to continue their work.
     Though I would not venture to speculate on God's movements in either of these works and events, I will note that the power of music is transcendent.  It lifts us, it encourages, it enables us to imagine greater things.  Music speaks to us of the potential of God.