Her mother had studied counterpoint with Friedrich Schneider, and her uncle was cellist and composer Bernhard Cossmann.
[3] Volkstein lived in Paris, Dresden, Murano, and Naples before settling in Weimar with her sister in 1905.
[3] Volkstein set her own poems to music and also composed music for texts by poets Arndt, Bierbaum, Chamisso, Eichendorff, Falke, Fallersleben, Flaischlen, Fleming, Geibel, Gersdorff, Goethe, Greif, Halm, Groth, Heine, Keller, Kerner, Lenau, Liliencron, Lons, Morike, Muller, Opitz, Roquette, Saar, Schenkendorf, Storm, Uhland, and Wolff.
[5] Several of her songs with guitar accompaniment initially appeared in Der Wächter, a magazine associated with the German youth movement during the 1920s and 1930s.
[6] Her music was also published by Fritz Schuberth[7] and Ries & Erler GMBH.