Ernest Newman devoted so much of his life to writing about Wagner that many people, the times being anti-Wagnerian, regarded him as a brilliant musical scholar who had unfortunately become limited by a fixed obsession. In his earlier days, he produced important studies of Gluck, Beethoven, Liszt, Strauss, and Wolf; but in later life he seemed to be interested only in one composer. Concerning his articles in The Sunday Times, someone concocted an amusing clerihew:

Next week, said Ernest Newman,

I shall write about Schumann;

But when next week came,

It was Wagner, just the same.