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Viktor Ullmann came from an assimilated Jewish family that converted to Catholicism. He came from Cieszyn in Silesia. He was a modern European with very broad interests and horizons.
He studied in Vienna, whereas when World War I broke out, he volunteered for the army. Despite his great talent for the piano, Ullmann did not plan a musical career.
After the war ended, he returned to the now-independent Czechoslovakia. He settled in Prague, where he became a conductor at the New German Theater (now the Prague State Opera). At that time, he also began composing, and his works were played at various festivals in Europe. He worked in Switzerland and Germany, from which he fled when the Nazis took power there.
After returning to Prague, he worked at Czechoslovakian radio as a reviewer and music critic. He was also a lecturer and tutor. In his works from the 1920s, one can see the clear influence of Schönberg, with whom he was studying at the time. Later in his career, works such as his Chamber Symphony, Op. 9, Song of George, Op. 15, and Piano Sonata No. 1 showed clear development as a composer and independence from his mentor. Over time, Ullmann created his own unique musical style. In 1942 he was arrested and sent to the Terezin concentration camp.
He was then the author of 3 sonatas and 41 other works, such as operas and piano concertos. While most of these works were lost, thirteen prints that the composer published privately and which were preserved in the collections of his friends have survived to the present day. In the camp, Ullmann still had contact with music. He organized concerts and even wrote critiques of musical events. In the camp he composed 20 works, including the opera “Emperor of Atlantis.” Most of them have been preserved.
On October 14, 1944, he was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he died in the gas chamber a few days later.