A piano virtuoso with a temper as sharp as his musical genius. Von Bülow could sight-read entire symphonies but treated musicians like servants, once calling an orchestra "a bunch of donkeys" mid-performance. He was Liszt's son-in-law and Wagner's champion, premiering some of the most challenging works of the Romantic era—all while nursing a spectacular, public marital implosion when his wife Cosima left him for Wagner himself.
January 8, 1830
196 years ago
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