Hans von Bülow: A Life for Music (review)

Abstract

CONDUCTORS Hans von Bulow: A Life for Music. By Kenneth Birkin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. [xviii, 715 p. ISBN 9781107005860. $150.] Illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index. It is probably safe to say that no musician of nineteenth century had a more decisive on direction of German music than Hans von Bulow. As a teenager and law student, he crossed paths with Robert and Clara Schumann, came to know and quickly idolize Richard Wagner during turbulent late 1840s, became Franz Liszt's star pupil and outspoken defender of Zukunftsmusik, promoted orchestral works of Johannes Brahms and Richard Strauss, and furthered Gustav Mahler's conducting and-by extension-composing careers a decisive moment in young musician's artistic development. In doing so, he revolutionized concert-going experience as conductor and pianist. Yet, scholarship on Bulow has been overwhelmingly underwhelming. Indeed, only in last decade have his life and works been examined with necessary critical care: first by Frithjof Haas, Hans von Bulow: Leben und Wirken (Wilhelmshaven: F. Noetzel, 2002); and more recently by Alan Walker in Hans von Bulow: A Life and Times (Oxford: Ox - ford University Press, 2010; reviewed by James L. Zychowicz in Notes 67, no. 2 [December 2010]: 333-35). These two authors sought to present Bulow as a creative musician who composed, arranged, performed, taught, and criticized-in other words, as someone no different than, say, Liszt or Camille Saint-Saens. While acknowledging various aspects of Bulow's artistry, Kenneth Birkin argues in his Hans von Bulow: A Life for Music that it is as a self-styled 'reproductive' artist that he made his greatest impact (p. ix). This position significantly colors Birkin's presentation. The first two chapters, which cover Bulow's upbringing and first years in law school, lead inexorably to chapter 3, Decision Time: Weimar, Zurich (1850- 1851) and chapter 4, Weimar Apprentice - ship (1851-1853), in which twentyyear- old takes oaths of servitude to Wagner and Liszt. On latter, Birkin wryly notes that the emotional bond formed in those months in Switzerland was, in fullness of time, to prove hostage to fortune (p. 45). Indeed, in following five chapters, which cover next decade of Bulow's career in Austria-Hungary, Chocieszewice, and Berlin, Bulow repeatedly manages to change his fortunes for better, only to undermine them next turn. To be sure, Bulow's commitment to (good) music above all is commendable, but one cannot help but wonder whether he could have achieved his artistic aims earlier in his career had he but been a better team player. Coming in middle of Birkin's narrative, chapter 10 chronicles Bulow's tenure in Munich from 1864 to 1869, a period made famous by his conducting premieres of Tristan und Isolde and Die Meister - singer von Nurnberg, and made infamous thanks to his wife-Liszt's daughter- Cosima. Birkin devotes most of chapter to Bulow's extraordinarily productive concert activities: more than 230 appearances that include music by usual suspects ( J. S. Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Liszt, and Wagner), but also by Charles-Valentin Alkan, Josef Rheinberger, and Anton Rubinstein, to name but a few. While Birkin dutifully covers Cosima's affair, he spends little time rationalizing it. But Bulow's chief reason for denying liaison may rest in his success Munich. As he informed Karl Bechstein, I am musical overlord of a city which will soon, artistically, eclipse Berlin, Vienna and Leipzig! Yes, indeed-that's exactly goal I'm aiming at (p. 171). This and similar statements amply justify Birkin's subtitle. The remaining chapters follow Munich model: promise followed by failure. Birkin notes a recklessness which became more pronounced as Bulow rose, during 1880s and 1890s, to veritable guru status on German musical scene (p. …