Background
Bülow was born in Dresden, to members of the prominent Bülow family.
(Conductor, pianist, teacher, writer, and composer Hans vo...)
Conductor, pianist, teacher, writer, and composer Hans von Bülow was a key figure in 19th-century music. In the book Hans von Bulow: A Life for Music, published in 2011, Kenneth Birkin observes that he never really made the grade as a composer. However, while it is true that Bulow is perhaps best known for his editions of keyboard works by other composers, he also wrote a substantial number of solo piano pieces, songs, chamber works, and choral music. The pieces here represent Bulow at his best as a composer, proving that his creative talents were not negligible, even if they were no match for his remarkable powers as a promoter and interpreter of the works of others.
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Bülow was born in Dresden, to members of the prominent Bülow family.
From the age of nine, he was a student of Friedrich Wieck (the father of Clara Schumann). However, his parents insisted that he study law instead of music, and they sent him to Leipzig. There 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 studied the piano in Leipzig with the famous pedagogue Louis Plaidy. He obtained his first conducting job in Zurich, on Wagner's recommendation, in 1850.
Beginning in the 1850s he toured Europe, England, and the United States as a virtuoso pianist; his repertory is said to have included virtually every major work of his day. In 1857 he married Liszt’s daughter Cosima. He became director of music at the Munich court in 1864, where he conducted the premieres of two of Wagner’s works—Tristan und Isolde (1865) and Die Meistersinger (1868; The Mastersingers). Cosima left Bülow for Wagner (whom she married in 1870), but Bülow nonetheless continued to promote Wagner’s music. He conducted at Hannover from 1878 to 1880) and at Meiningen from 1880 to 1885, where his orchestra became one of the finest in Europe. Bülow was also among the earliest interpreters of Johannes Brahms, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss and was one of the first conductors to conduct from memory; his interpretations were noted for their integrity and emotional power.
He published critical editions of Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Baptist Cramer (now superseded by later editions), piano transcriptions of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and other major works, and a number of compositions for orchestra. In 1893 he went to Cairo because of his failing health.
(Conductor, pianist, teacher, writer, and composer Hans vo...)
Quotations:
"A tenor is not a man but a disease".
"Always conduct with the score in your head, not your head in the score".
He became acquainted with, fell in love and eventually married Liszt's daughter Cosima, who later left him for Wagner.
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