Bülow after the first performance at Berlin advised Liszt to cut out the very last measures. "I love especially the thirds in the kettle-drums, as a new and bold invention--but I find them a little too ear-boxing for cowardly ears.... I know positively that these eight last drumbeats have especially determined or rather emboldened the opposition to manifestation. And so, if you do not find positive cowardice in my request--put these two measures on my back--do as though I had had the impertinence to add them as my own. I almost implore this of you!"
In 1863 Bülow sent Louis Köhler his latest photograph, "Souvenir du 14 janvier, 1859." It represents him standing, baton in hand; on a conductor's desk is the score of Die Ideale, and there is this inscription to Liszt: "'_Sub hoc signo vici, nec vincere desistam._' to his Master, his artistic Ideal, with thanks and veneration out of a full heart. Hans v. Bülow, Berlin, October 22, 1863." Liszt wrote Bülow from Budapest (January 3, 1873): "You know I profess not to collect photographs, and in my house portraits do not serve as ornaments. At Rome I had only two in my chamber; yours--that of Die Ideale, '_Sub hoc signo vici, nec vincere desistam_'--was one of them."
It appears that others wished to tinker the score of this symphonic poem. Bülow wrote the Princess Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein (February 10, 1859) that he had anticipated the permission of Liszt, and had sent Die Ideale to Leopold Damrosch, who would have the parts copied and produce the work in the course of the month at Breslau. Carl Tausig produced Die Ideale at Vienna for the first time, February 24, 1861, and in a letter written before the performance to Liszt he said: "I shall conduct Die Ideale wholly according to your wish, yet I am not at all pleased with Damrosch's variante; my own are more plausible, ... and Cornelius has strengthened me in my belief." When Die Ideale was performed again at Vienna, in 1880, at a concert of the Society of Music Friends, led by the composer, Eduard Hanslick based his criticism on the "witty answer" made by Berthold Auerbach to a noble dame who asked him what he thought of Liszt's compositions. He answered by putting another question: "What would you think if Ludwig Devrient, after he had played Shakespeare, Schiller, and Goethe with the complete mastery of genius, had said to himself in his fiftieth year: 'Why should I not be able also to write what I play so admirably? I'll be no longer a play actor; henceforth I'll be a tragic poet'?"