BULOW, HANS VON (183o-1894), German pianist and conductor, was born at Dresden on Jan. 8, 183o, the son of Eduard von Billow (1803-1858), a well-known author. He received his first lessons in pianoforte-playing from Friederich Wieck, the father of Clara Schumann, but there was no intention of his adopting music as a profession, and in due course he became a law student at Leipzig, though he continued his musical studies, working at counterpoint under Moritz Hauptmann. In 1848 he was already an enthusiast for Wagner's work, and in 1849 was contributing to the Abendpost in Berlin (where he was continuing his legal studies) articles in support of his music and that of Liszt. In the years 1850-51 he studied in Zurich the art of conduct ing under Wagner himself. He then returned to Weimar to work at the pianoforte under Liszt, of whose style and school of play ing he became in due course one of the leading exponents. In 1857 he married Liszt's brilliant daughter, Cosima. In the mean time, after two years at Weimar, he began to play in the chief musical centres in Central Europe. He then spent nine years (1855-64) in Berlin as professor of pianoforte playing at the Stern conservatorium, working also as a conductor and writing on musical subjects. In 1864, Wagner helped him to secure the po sitions of Ho f kapellmeister to Louis II. of Bavaria and director of the royal school of music at Munich. There he conducted the historic first performances of Tristan and the Meistersinger. His intimacy with Wagner was now broken by the desertion of his wife Cosima, who left him to marry the composer, but his ad miration and enthusiasm for Wagner's work remained unchanged in spite of the severance of their personal relations. After a long concert tour, Billow settled as conductor at Hanover 8o), and then at Meiningen (188o-85). At Meiningen, where he made the orchestra one of the first in Europe, he married, in 1882, Marie Schanzer. From 1885 onwards he conducted in many centres in Russia, in Germany, and in England, and gave classes in pianoforte-playing at the Raff conservatorium in Frankfurt and the Klindworth school in Berlin. He went to live in Ham burg in 1888, though he still conducted the Philharmonic con certs in Berlin, and that year he made his last appearance in England. He died in Cairo on Feb. 13, Billow was a great artist, with complete intellectual mastery of the music he played or conducted. As a conductor he was per haps greatest in Beethoven, but he was also a great exponent of contemporary music, of Wagner, Liszt, Tchaikovski and Brahms. He had a remarkable musical memory, and had by heart prac tically all the pianoforte works of the great composers. His mastery of the content of the works of the masters made his editions, especially of the pianoforte works of Beethoven, of great value to students, though they have been criticized by some in respect of their arbitrariness and even inaccuracy. His own music has not lived, but among his more ambitious productions may be mentioned an orchestral work Nirwana, incidental music to Julius Caesar, and Vier Charakterstiicke f iir Orchester.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Briefe Billows and ausgewahlte Schriften (vols. i. Bibliography.-Briefe Billows and ausgewahlte Schriften (vols. i. and ii. were translated into English by Constance Bache) ; see mono graphs by A. Steiner (1906), H. Riemann (1908), and R. du Moulin Eckart (1921) .