All you Need is Love: Mark Berry is stimulated by a controversial new study of Wagner’s works

I enjoyed reading this book – an observation which may sound banal, but is no minor point. Books should be intended to be read, a point too often forgotten by their authors. That cannot be said of Barry Emslie, who writes engagingly, carrying one along with his way of thinking, and driving one to think for oneself. For instance, he writes amusingly of Kundry’s kiss, ‘the male is indeed fortunate if he not only doesn’t have to settle with the father before he usurps his place, but is also rewarded by a maternal kiss that is both a sensual pleasure and a religious benediction’ (p. 238). A couple of sentences on, Emslie pithily dismisses ‘all decent and thereby false Wagnerites’.