Hans von Bülow was a piano virtuoso with a temper as sharp as his musical genius, a conductor who could sight-read entire symphonies but treated musicians like servants. Born on January 8, 1830, in Dresden, Saxony, he studied law before abandoning it for music after attending a performance conducted by Richard Wagner in 1849. He became a student of Franz Liszt, one of the greatest pianists who ever lived, and married Liszt's daughter Cosima in 1857. Von Bülow was one of the first great modern conductors, establishing the model of the authoritative, dictatorial podium figure that persisted well into the twentieth century. He premiered Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" in 1865 and "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" in 1868, two of the most demanding works in the operatic repertoire. He also gave the premiere of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, which had been rejected by the Russian pianist Nikolai Rubinstein as unplayable. His personal life was devastated by his wife's affair with Wagner, which became public knowledge across European musical circles. Cosima left von Bülow for Wagner in 1868, and they married in 1870. The humiliation was compounded by the fact that von Bülow had been Wagner's most passionate advocate and had premiered his most important works. He never fully recovered from the betrayal, though he channeled his bitterness into some of the most disciplined performances of the era. He later served as music director in Meiningen and Hamburg, where he championed the music of Brahms. He once called an orchestra "a bunch of donkeys" during a rehearsal. He died on February 12, 1894, in Cairo, where he had traveled for his health.