New Holocaust Survivors: Executed Composers' Music Revived
Viktor Ullmann died at Auschwitz in 1944. But thanks to American conductor James Conlon, his music (which includes Hitler satire "The Emperor of Atlantis") is enjoying new life.

In fact, Conlon hopes to help rescue the works of an entire generation of lost composers and reestablish them in the world's musical repertoire.

Conlon, who has for the past 8 years been principal conductor of the Paris National Opera, created the multi-year series "Recovering a Musical Heritage," which will visit New York and feature the work of five different composers, including Pavel Hass and Hans Krasa.

In a March 19 Reuters article, Conlon fretted that "The vast majority of music lovers don't get a chance to hear any of this and they don't even know it's there." He likens the series to correcting an enormous injustice. "You can't give these men's lives back to them. You can't undo history. But the least you can do is bring to people's attention the thing that they most valued, which was their own works of art."

And Conlon implicitly poses a what-if: "There were many alternative voices in the first half of the 20th century that would have made an impact on our perception of classical music in a very different way had they lived, had their work not been interrupted."

The first composer featured in the series is Viktor Ullmann, whose works are seldom performed or heard. Ullmann was a composer, pianist, choirmaster, conductor, music critic, and a longtime friend of Alexander Zemlinsky, head of the Prague German Opera Company.

He also was one of the victims from among the Prague German Jewish musicians in World War II. On Sept. 8th, 1942 Viktor Ullmann was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto. Later he was deported to Auschwitz where he died in a gas chamber, on or around Oct. l5th, 1944.

He was artistically active even during his time in Nazi concentration camps. He wrote one of his operas, Der Kaiser von Atlantis, while at Theresienstadt.

Only a part of Ullmann's work has been found so far. He is thought to have written some forty works before the war. Roughly twenty fragments of complete or nearly-complete compositions from Theresienstadt have been preserved.

In an April 20 New York Times review, critic Bernard Holland regretfully finds that Ullmann's work, while skillful, adds little to the music of his times, while somewhat bemoaning the "grade inflation" that gets attached to composers with "tragic stories." Further, he is wary of the "lurking danger" of possible exploitation. Yet Holland admits that Ullmann deserves dignified memory and has earned legitimacy, and that we'll never know what a longer life might have provided Ullmann, or us.


Link to a concise biography of Viktor Ullmann


Link to official site of the Viktor Ullmann Foundation UK. The Viktor Ullmann Foundation UK was founded by the British concert pianist Jacqueline Cole in 2002 to "honour, celebrate and remember the life, courage and genius of the Prager German composer and pupil of Arnold Schoenberg, and his fellow artists and musicians in the Theresienstadt (Terezín) ghetto. This will be achieved through concerts, festivals, cabaret, lectures, Holocaust education and film."

Link to March 19 Reuters story

Link to April 20 New York Times review