Your audio moment of Zen

I don't know that this is the most beautiful piece of music ever written, but I don't know that it isn't, either.

It is, of course, from Wagner's opera, "Tristan und Isolde" and where he later re-scored the Prelude and Finale (the "Libestod", or "Love Death") as an orchestral piece. It's haunting.

Wagner's opera was fatal not only to the lovers Tristan and Isolde, but to the performers themselves: the original Tristan died suddenly 3 weeks into the opera's original run in 1865, plus a couple of conductors (one in 1911 and one in 1968) - both of whom collapsed and died while conducting the second act.