Ernest Newman

He had no formal musical education but taught himself to play the piano "after a fashion" could read music as easily as books studied vocal music composition harmony and counterpoint and introduced himself to a wide range of music through reading scores. Biography


Early years
Newman was born William Roberts in Everton a district of Liverpool the only child of Seth Roberts a Welsh tailor and his second wife Harriet née Spark both of whom had children by their first marriages.

Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians describes him as "the most celebrated British music critic in the first half of the 20th century. Ernest Newman (30 November 1868 – 7 July 1959) was an English music critic and musicologist. " His style of criticism aiming at intellectual objectivity in contrast to the more subjective approach of other critics such as Neville Cardus was reflected in his books on Richard Wagner Hugo Wolf Richard Strauss and others.