Hans von Bulow
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Hans Guido Freiherr von Bülow (en: Baron Hans Guido von Bülow), (January 8, 1830 – February 12, 1894) was a German conductor, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic era. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard Wagner.
He was born in Dresden, Saxony. From the age of 9 he was a student of Friedrich Wieck (the father of Clara Schumann). However his parents insisted that he study law instead of music, and sent him to Leipzig.
At Leipzig he met Franz Liszt, and on hearing some music of Richard Wagner—specifically, the premiere of Lohengrin in 1850—he decided to ignore the dictates of his parents and make himself a career in music instead. He obtained his first conducting job in Zürich, on Wagner's recommendation, in 1850.
Von Bülow was notoriously tactless, and alienated many musicians with whom he worked. He was fired from his Zürich job for this reason, but at the same time he was beginning to win renown for his ability to conduct new and complex works without a score. In 1851 he became a student of Franz Liszt, marrying Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857. During the 1850s and early 1860s he was active as a piano recitalist, conductor, and writer, and became well-known throughout Germany as well as Russia.
In 1864 he became the conductor of the Munich Court Opera, and it was at this post he achieved his principal renown. He conducted the premieres of two Richard Wagner operas, Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, in 1865 and 1868 respectively; both were immensely successful. However, his wife Cosima, who had been carrying on an extramarital affair with Richard Wagner for some time, left him in 1868, taking with her two of their four daughters—the two which Richard Wagner had fathered—and in 1870 divorced Von Bülow. In spite of this, von Bülow remained a disciple of Wagner's, and never seemed to hold a grudge; indeed he mourned the death of Wagner, and continued to conduct his work.
In addition to championing the music of Wagner, von Bülow was a supporter of the music of both Brahms and Tchaikovsky. He gave the premiere of the Fourth Symphony of Brahms with his own orchestra in 1885, and gave the world premiere of the Tchaikovsky First Piano Concerto in Boston in 1875, a stormy affair marred by jeers, heckling and insults.
From 1878 to 1880 he was Hofkapellmeister in Hanover, but was forced to leave after fighting with a tenor singing the "Knight of the Swan" role in Lohengrin (von Bülow had called him the "Knight of the Swine"). In 1880 he moved to Meiningen where he took the equivalent post, and where he built the orchestra into one of the finest in Germany; among his other demands, he insisted the musicians learn to play all their parts from memory. Some of his orchestral innovations included the addition of the five-string bass and the pedal timpani; the pedal timpani has since become a standard instrument in the symphony orchestra.
In the late 1880s he settled in Hamburg, but continued to tour, both conducting and performing on the piano. In the early 1890s his mental and physical health began to fail, and he sought a warmer, drier climate for recovery; however he died in a hotel in Cairo, Egypt.
Notes
Note regarding personal names: Freiherr is a title, translated as Baron, not a first or middle name. The female forms are Freifrau and Freiin.References
- Christopher Fifield: "Hans von Bülow", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed October 28, 2005), [(subscription access)]
- Raymond Holden: The Virtuoso Conductors: The Central European Tradition from Wagner to Karajan. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2005. ISBN 0300093268.
- John Warrack, "Hans von Bülow", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
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