Wagner's Parsifal

In his weaving of philosophy and musicology into an explication of redemption via the vehicle of compassion, this is an unparalleled, sadly posthumously published offering. It is at once required reading and a launch pad for an infinitude of musings. It is also, it should be clearly stated, magisterial. – Colin Clarke * Opera Now *This is Roger Scruton’s final book. Parsifal was Wagner’s final opera. Both works are intended to be taken as Last Words: testaments of belief at the end of a long spiritual journey… you [will] find enormous satisfaction in following the journey of one of our great philosophers making sense of his own life though another’s sublime work of art. – Sue Prideaux * Spectator *

Sir Roger Scruton, who died just after completing this book, was a writer and philosopher who held positions at the universities of London, Oxford, Boston, St Andrews and Buckingham and who wrote widely on art, architecture, music and aesthetics. His books include his now classic Short History of Modern Philosophy (1981), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Death-Devoted Heart- Sex and the Sacred in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (2004) and The Ring of Truth- The Wisdom of Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelung (2016). He was a Fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.