During his visit to Rome, Gobineau met and befriended the German composer Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima.[151] Wagner was greatly impressed with the Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines and he used his newspaper, the Bayreuther Blätter to popularize Gobineau's racial theories in Germany.[75] Gobineau, in turn was greatly impressed with Wagner's music and unusually for a Frenchman, he became a member of the Bayreuth Circle.[75] Wagner was fascinated by Gobineau's racial theories, and much of his writing from then on showed Gobineau's influence.[152] Field wrote that "Gobineau's chief work, Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines contained a far more detailed and closely argued explanation for cultural decadence than anything Wagner had written.