Hans Winterberg's extraordinary life was written in two chapters, one Czech and one German, split right down the middle by the experience of the Shoah, which Winterberg, unlike his colleagues Ullmann, Krása, Haas and Klein, miraculously survived. In 1947, the Prague-born composer moved to Munich, where he worked for the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation.

As a student of Alexander Zemlinsky and Alois Hába, he belongs both to the Czech tradition following Janá?ek and to the circle of the Second...