Silence in Recovered Music: Viktor Ullmann’s Sonata for Violin (and Piano)

In the study of music and the Holocaust, research on Theresienstadt primarily provides insight into the calculated propaganda showing the camp to international inspectors as a model rather than a transit camp. Artistic production concealed the reality of Theresienstadt - an antechamber of Auschwitz. From the musical life in Theresienstadt, several composers have received substantial post-war attention for their individual compositions as well as work on the children’s opera Brundibar. These composers include Pavel Haas, Viktor Ullmann, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krása whom all ultimately perished in the Holocaust at other sites. The experiences of these composers helps us understand the function of transit camps in further obfuscating the deportation of Jews both to victims and to international humanitarian authorities. The intermediary camps hold extraordinary significance in the transfer of mass murder to the East and creation of euphemistic descriptions of genocide.

Viktor Ullmann was a Silesian-born composer from a family of assimilated Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism. Attending gymnasium in Vienna, he attracted the attention of Arnold Schoenberg, and returned to study with him in 1918 after serving on the Italian front during the First World War. Ullmann was also an excellent pianist, and although he chose a career in composition over performance, wrote substantially for the instrument including numerous pieces for solo piano and concerti, cadenzas to the Beethoven piano concertos, and piano chamber music. His time with Schoenberg had a profound influence on Ullmann’s work, as did his return to Prague in 1919 where he studied with Alexander von Zemlinsky. Ullmann worked with composer Alois Haba in the late 1930s and was interested in systems of quarter-tone compositions before the outbreak of war. Ullmann also worked as the director of a theatre and as a conductor and had a strong interest in anthropology as well as music. At the outbreak of war, Ullmann desperately tried to procure visas for himself and his family ultimately securing his children on a kindertransport to England. Ullmann was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 where he worked in the camp under the Freizeitgestaltung (Leisure Administration). At Theresienstadt, Ullmann composed twenty-three works, performed and lectured as a pianist, and championed the work of other composers in the camp including Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, and Hans Krasa. The most overtly political work from the camp of Ullmann’s was Der Kaiser von Atlantis where  dramatically the Emperor of Atlantis confronts Death. The satirical allusion to Hitler was not lost on the SS, and the work was never performed. With news of the Allied and Soviet advancement, Theresienstadt was rapidly liquidated and Ullmann and many of his musical colleagues were sent to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944. Viktor Ullmann died in the camp two days later murdered by the Third Reich and their collaborators.

It is reductive to view composers in the Nazi nexus of destruction solely based on their victimization. The five years Ullmann or the others spent in concentration camps should not overshadow their pre-war compositions, which also inform their compositional style in the camps. If Viktor Ullmann is only considered for his time in Theresienstadt and subsequent murder at Auschwitz Birkenau, the memory of the composer is clouded with memory of his victimhood. Certainly, preservation of Holocaust artworks and music is paramount. However, remembrance of composers exclusively defined by their victimhood and resulting work recalls the worst of the composer’s life, not his artistic merit. Although outstanding music may be produced under duress, the remembrance of murdered composers should rest in the mandate to preserve a destroyed intellectual history and life beyond persecution under the Third Reich. Furthermore, a focus on composers’ forced output under National Socialism, particularly in camps, emphasizes a dangerous redemption motif where (some) artists were able to maintain fragments of humanity against tyranny in impossible conditions. This paradoxically aligns with the Nazified use of duplicitous language and “model” camps like Terezin, reading the forced artistic production by SS overseers as resistance or solace. This is further complicated when these narratives are prioritized over non-written acts of community resilience like the continued performance of Sinti and Roma musicians in camps, the preservation of scores in hidden archives like by Oneg Shabbos in the Warsaw ghetto, and the transference of songs between individuals to preserve cultural and religious traditions.

Viktor Ullmann’s Sonata for violin and piano op. 39 is a pre-war composition reflecting his rich training with Schoenberg, exposure to Jazz, and work in the theatre. Composed in 1938, the work was set for premiere and likely never performed coinciding with Ullmann’s frantic attempts to escape Europe. The sonata is verifiably Ullmann’s with the composer’s autograph on the title page and writing throughout the violin part. The parts were likely copied by a student, while the idiomatic additions to the violin part suggest markings were added by the performer during early rehearsals, since Ullmann himself was not a violinist. The violin sonata is part of the larger Viktor Ullmann collection of manuscripts at Paul Sacher Foundation, and is not in commercial print. The Ullmann collection at Paul Sacher Foundation was partially from Ullmann’s friend and Theresienstadt librarian Emil Utitz, passed to writer Hans-Günther Adler and donated to the Allgemeinen Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft am Goetheanum Dornach in 1987. In 2002, the institute deposited the Ullmann collection to Paul Sacher Foundation where it is housed for research, preservation, and scholarly study. Tracing the provenance of the violin sonata is particularly important as several apocryphal versions of the work have surfaced over the years. The 1937 version of the work presented here, is certainly the writing of Viktor Ullmann and is one of the few pre-war compositions in the collection. Other compositions by Ullmann remain in private collections and other public archives.

The recovery and performance of Ullmann’s Violin Sonata is mired by several challenges – most significantly, the destruction of the score. Sonatas, like most instrumental chamber music, are written in two forms. The piano part of the work contains both parts: the solo instrument and the piano part so that the pianist may see the other instrumental line. The instrumental part, here violin, does not have the piano part and the violinist must rely on rehearsal and prior study of the complete piano score to understand the entire piece in rehearsal and performance. In the case of the Ullmann violin sonata, only the violin part remains. When considering the reconstruction of the sonata, this has several practical ramifications. First, sonatas historically from Mozart until the late romantic, were intended as “Sonatas for Piano and Violin” – a hierarchical order indicating that the violin is not merely accompanied by the piano but rather virtuosically accompanying the pianist, rather than the inverse. The reordering of instruments in the title from the late Romantic period reflects the increasing importance of the violin, but without negating the importance of the piano, particularly in indicating the harmonic structure of the work.

Considering the roles in sonata writing historically is significant when considering reconstruction. If given the original piano score to the work, reproducing the lost violin part would be as simple as copying the top line of the score from each page – the violin part would appear in entirety as part of the piano score. Because only the violin part survives from Ullmann’s sonata, reconstruction would involve completely rewriting a new piano part. Similar reconstructions of Ullmann’s work exist – Don Quixote, Symphony no. 1, and Symphony no. 2 by Ullmann have all been completed or rewritten by composer Bernhard Wulff in the 1990s. However, such reconstructions can be problematic with lost music, particularly this violin sonata where apocryphal editions exist. Often reconstructions, or more commonly completions of works are undertaken by students of the composer who have an excellent concept of their work as a whole or possibly even direction from the composer. Still, these ‘completions’ of works often bear the signature or the style of the student. Ullmann himself was an excellent pianist, and the piano part to the Violin Sonata was likely highly related to his own technique and similar in some ways to his piano writing. To many artists, this sort of reconstruction of Holocaust works is not an acceptable representation of the composer’s intent. Because the composers were murdered, particular focus is given to the work as the composer intended rather than any alteration or completion of the score.

Finally, with composers like Ullmann two important questions arise relating to commemorative practice and rediscovered scores. If a work is rediscovered, particularly a work like the Violin Sonata which could potentially have false versions, is susceptible to denial. Deniers could gain perceived credibility claiming a work was not composed by Ullmann if the work were completed or reconstructed by a student or colleague. Pragmatically, with many works which have been musically constructed we have a larger canon of pieces from which to draw. With the case of Ullmann, only a small percentage of his entire oeuvre remains and is scattered across multiple archives and publishers. This makes understanding his style as a composer difficult– the gestures of his melody, structural relationships of harmony, voicing and orchestration for individual instruments. Although we may infer larger stylistic elements in Ullmann’s writing, making totalizing statements about his musical language is not possible. Finally, who would be appropriate to do such a reconstruction of lost music? Should this be a factor for a murdered composer more than it is a consideration for another work found in an archive? These complicated questions further compound the problem of completing or remaking the piano part to Ullmann’s sonata.

The difficulty in reconstructing a piano part to Viktor Ullmann’s Violin Sonata is evident. As only the violin part remains, performance of the work is still possible without reconstruction and in an altered form. Performing only the violin part solo is one possible solution. Rather than attempting a reconstruction, musical gestures may be incorporated commemoratively – silence rather than a lost piano part, for example. Rigid adherence of the performer to the music which remains including articulations, bowing, color changes become paramount to provide maximum deference to the composer and hold space and silence for the piano part as a new compositional symbol of loss and destruction.

As is the case with most sonatas, the violin and piano trade melodic material and accompanying each other. In most pieces, neither instrument would play continually through the entire work leaving small pauses throughout for the other instrument to shine musically or for practical considerations in performance like page turns. Thus, in the remaining violin part, there are measures missing without the piano playing. In the Adagio, slow second movement of the piece the maximum amount of time missing consecutively is seven measures – or about twenty-eight seconds. This length of time is uncomfortable for the audience and can be reduced to around ten seconds as performers do when they play excerpts of symphonic repertoire. It is perfectly possible, in other pauses of the Adagio which range from one to ten seconds to simply leave the silence in the music. This artistic choice allows for a different performance of the sonata. Rather than hearing both parts, the silence still is uncomfortable for the listener and becomes a literal, musical signifier of what was lost – a piano part and composer forever lost to the war.

Looking at Viktor Ullmann’s sonata as a whole, only the Adagio middle movement is appropriate for this sort of ‘performative commemoration’. In the slow movement, the use of silence and the status of the work may be used expressively to still represent Ullmann’s intent, while transforming the slow movement of a sonata for two instruments into an elegy for solo violin. Also, the addition of a mute to the violin part creates textural differences throughout the movement by changing the color of the instrument. This allows for a substantial variation of musical color even with one instrument in a static, single-tempo movement.

When the Adagio movement is excerpted, this loss of the other movements should be made clear. This changes the tone of the Adagio from simply “slow” to elegiac in presentation. This is a significant shift, as it provides a conceptual shift of what we consider commemorative works. Commemorative pieces of music of the Holocaust do not necessarily need to be works composed after the war specifically in remembrance or pieces composed during the war by victims or survivors. Ullmann’s sonata provides such an avenue for a different work of commemoration. Although a composition may have nothing to do with the war, knowledge of the composer's persecution influences how the work is performed, even when the music is considered separately. This sort of commemorative practice allows for presentation of pre-war works in a new dynamic. Other composers – Erwin Schulhoff for example – wrote extensively for the violin pre-war and before they were caught in the whirlwind of the Holocaust. Interestingly, the Ullmann sonata is incomplete, so there is a new nuance to using this piece in commemoration where the work itself was destroyed by the war. Practically, the destruction of the second part – the piano score – requires a different type of performance. With both the biographical details of Ullmann’s life and murder and the performance issues with the piece, a new concept of the Adagio emerges: the solo violin of the Adagio must stand for the entire rest of the work. This artistically dramatically changes the tone of the movement into a freestanding segment – an elegy to the lost composer and the lost work.

The 1937 Violin Sonata preserves Ullmann as he was, a composer from Prague, not a victim of the Third Reich. Its performance based on other surviving works allows for a different sort of commemorative practice – research on the victim rather their victimhood. Viktor Ullmann’s legacy should be considered in a longer intellectual history of the Second Viennese School both compositionally and as the war shattered the lives of many of the members. Analysis of works like the Violin Sonata resituate Ullmann as a composer and provide critical insight into his pre-Theresienstadt compositions. Practical, artistic decisions like that to leave silences in the work rather than reconstruction of the piano part of recovered music gives maximum deference to the intent of the composer when possible. Although this sort of practice is not always possible with performed works, great consideration should be given to the amount and type of ‘restoration’ done to recovered works. Preservation of such works by Holocaust composers, but with a focus on their artistic output rather than their victimhood allows for unique insight into memory studies and commemorative practice.

For a more complete discussion of this sonata, including the other movements and Viktor Ullmann’s place legacy within the Second Viennese School, please see: Birch, Alexandra. "4.1 Recovered Music, Recovered Memory: Viktor Ullmann’s Sonata for Violin" In New Microhistorical Approaches to an Integrated History of the Holocaust edited by Frédéric Bonnesoeur, Hannah Wilson and Christin Zühlke, 149-160. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023. .

Alexandra Birch, 2025

Sources

1. Deborah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt, Holocaust A History, (London: WW Norton Press, 2002), 296.
2. Heidy Zimmerman and Tina Kilvio Tuescher, Viktor Ullmann Guide to Music Manuscripts, (Basel: Paul Sacher Foundation and Schott, 2007), 9-14. Cadenzas are short virtuosic additions to a variety of instrumental compositions, most typically found in concertos. In concertos, the cadenza functions structurally as an extension of the first movement- where a symphony would typically end, the soloist in a concerto takes the major themes from the work and presents them in idiomatically virtuosic, and new ways for the instrument. Many contemporary performers rely on existing cadenzas composed by artists who knew the composers or by famous musicians since the piece. Original composition of cadenzas, as in the case of Ullmann’s writing for the Beethoven piano concertos, shows not only his virtuosity and understanding of piano technique, but also compositional virtuosity essentially providing a composer commentary on the mighty Beethoven.
3. Gwyneth Bravo, “Viktor Ullmann – Biography,” OREL Foundation, 2007. .
4. Zimmerman and Kilvio Tuescher, Viktor Ullmann Guide to Music Manuscripts, 5-6.
5. Hans-Günter Klein, “Die Kompositionen Viktor Ullmanns. Ein Verzeichnis der vorhandenen Quellen,” in Viktor Ullmann. Materialien  - Verdrängte Musik, Vol. 2 (Hamburg: von Bockel, 1992), 7-64.
6. William S. Newman, "Concerning the accompanied Clavier sonata," The Musical Quarterly 33, no. 3 (1947): 327-349. Newman’s discussion provides an important overview of the genre of the addition of other instruments to the piano sonata – often the default composition for composers who played piano. Similar scholarship is echoed in the critical editions of the Baerenreiter and Henle editions of Beethoven and Brahms emphasizing the role of the piano in the Sonatas and the resulting choices made in the violin parts by editors.
7. The correct term for this sort of musical processing wherein an original composition is finished or reconstructed is Fremdbearbeitungen and has been a process generally undertaken by students like the Süssmayr completion of Mozart’s Requiem. Zimmerman and Kilvio Tuescher, Viktor Ullmann Guide to Music Manuscripts, 13.
8. Erwin Schulhoff, “List of Works,” OREL Foundation, Accessed 2/12/2021, 
9. Erwin Schulhoff, another famous Holocaust-era composer, wrote most of his oeuvre pre-war including several violin sonatas with piano and a solo violin sonata. His music is also serial, occasionally based in Jazz, and is frequently performed on Holocaust programs using this sort of pre-war approach to commemoration.