Hans von Bülow

Hans von Bülow was a German conductor and pianist, one of the first virtuoso conductors. He conducted the premieres of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde (1865) and Die Meistersinger (1868), even after his wife Cosima left him for Wagner. As director of the Meiningen court orchestra from 1880 to 1885 he made it a model ensemble, and he later became the first principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.