Tchaikovsky
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Hans von Bülow

Hans Guido von Bülow was a German conductor, pianist and composer, born in Dresden on 8 January 1830.

Bülow's musical studies began relatively late, and was not until the age of nine that he began to receive formal piano lessons. After studying law in Leipzig and Dresden, he abandoned his legal career in 1850 to make his debut as a conductor in Zurich. In 1851 he began piano studies at Weimar with Franz Liszt, whose daughter Cosima he went on to marry in 1857. After teaching in Berlin (1855-1864) and giving piano recitals, he was appointed Hofkapellmeister in Munich in 1865, where he conducted the premieres of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868).

After his wife first Cosima (Liszt's daughter) left him for Richard Wagner after eleven years of marriage in 1868, Bülow resigned his post in Munich the following year, and began to tour widely in Europe, Russia and the United States. It was in Boston in 1875 that he premiered Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, which the composer dedicated to him. Although closely associated with the New German School of music, Von Bülow also championed Tchaikovsky's works, and conducted the premiere of his Suite No. 3 in Saint Petersburg in 1885.

In 1882 Bülow married again to the actress Marie Schlanzer, who had friendly relations with Tchaikovsky.

Hans von Bülow died in Cairo, Egypt, on 12 February 1894, aged 64, following a long period of ill health.