Sechs Lieder

Viktor Ullmann composed a total over 70 lieder and this genre plays a central role in his compositional output: 31 lieder have survived from the period prior to his deportation to Theresienstadt and a further 29 have been preserved which were composed during his internment. Ullmann had already begun collaborating with the poet Albert Steffen in 1935/36: Steffen provided the libretto for Ullmann’s opera Der Sturz des Antichrist. It is most likely that the pair became acquainted with one another around 1930 when Ullmann began to develop a great interest in anthroposophy and forged contacts in Dornach und Stuttgart with the General Anthroposophy Society of which Steffen had been chairman since 1925. The Sechs Lieder were the first works to be self-published by Ullmann.