Victor Zuckerkandl was born in Vienna on July 2, 1896. He studied music theory and piano in Vienna, conducted operas and concerts there and in other cities, and received his Ph.D. in 1927 at Vienna University. From 1927 to 1933 he was a music critic for newspapers in Berlin, and from 1934 to 1938 he taught music theory and appreciation courses in Vienna. Dr. Zuckerkandl emigrated to the United States in 1940, and for two years was a member of the music department at Wellesley College. During the war effort, he worked as a machinist in a Boston defense plant. Afterwards, he was on the faculty of the New School, in New York, teaching courses on music theory from 1946 to 1948.

Under a grant-in-aid from the American Philosophical Society, Dr. Zuckerkandl developed a music course especially for the liberal arts student. Instead of being a technical, survey, or appreciation course, it dealt with the nature, structure, and significance of the tonal language which had been used by great composers of the past. After he joined the faculty at St. John's College (Annapolis, Maryland) in 1948, the course was adopted as a requisite for liberal arts students at the college. Dr. Zuckerkandl's book The Sense of Music (Princeton, 1959) presented this approach to a larger audience. He remained at St. John's, teaching music as part of the Great Books program, until his retirement in 1964. He retired in Ascona, Switzerland, and gave lectures at various intellectual confereneces until his death in 1965.