Sigismund von Neukomm

Neukomm first studied with the Salzburg organist Franz Xaver Weissauer and later studied theory under Michael Haydn and Leopold Mozart, though his studies at Salzburg University were in philosophy and mathematics. He became honorary organist at the Salzburg University Church in 1792, and was appointed chorus-master at the Salzburg court theater in 1796.

Neukomm left Salzburg at the end of March 1797, moving to Vienna in order to study with Joseph Haydn; his studies lasted seven years. Neukomm venerated his teacher, as is known from the many remarks he made to others and from the many times he dedicated his musical activities to Haydn. He performed a number of services for his teacher, making arrangements of The Creation, Il ritorno di Tobia, The Seasons and the cantata Arianna a Naxos, as well as transcriptions of various symphonies for harmonium and piano. By 1804, when the declining Haydn was no longer able to compose, he took over the task of making arrangements of 43 Scottish folk songs.^[1]

In 1814 Neukomm was responsible for erecting a tombstone to the memory of Haydn over his first grave in the Hundsturm cemetery in Vienna. The inscription included a puzzle canon composed by Neukomm himself. He was in regular contact with the composer in the last months of his life.

In Vienna Neukomm also gave piano and singing lessons; his pupils included Anna Milder and Franz Xaver Mozart.

On 5 May 1804 he left Vienna for St Petersburg. Neukomm was kapellmeister at St. Petersburg's German theatre from 1804 to 1809, and in 1816 he travelled to Rio de Janeiro with the Duke of Luxemburg and stayed there as maître de chapelle to Dom Pedro until the revolution forced his return to Lisbon in 1821.^[2]

For the last two decades or so of his life Neukomm divided his time between London and Paris. He came to London in 1829 at the same time as Mendelssohn, and the two met at 3 Chester Place, the home of Ignaz Moscheles.^[3] In England his Symphony in E♭ was put on by the Philharmonic Society (on March 21 1831) and his oratorios gained popularity. Mount Sinai received repeated performances in London, Worcester, Derby and elsewhere, and David was composed especially for the 1834 Birmingham Festival. Two songs - 'Napoleon's Midnight Review' and 'The Sea,', both setting words by Barry Cornwall, achieved particular popularity. However, the success of his friend Mendelssohn at the 1937 Birmingham Festival with the oratorio St Paul quickly eclipsed his fame. Despite this Neukomm felt at home in England and claimed to have set more English words than any other foreign composer.^[4]

Neukomm's compositional output is large. There are around 1000 church works, including 48 masses and eight oratorios, including his greatest successs David. His Requiem Mass à la mémoire de Louis XVI was commissioned by Talleyrand and premiered for royalty an d diplomats attending the Congress of Vienna on 21 January, the 22nd anniversary of the execution of Louis XVI in 1793. There is also an opera, Alexander, incidental music for four plays, a clarinet quintet, and many smaller works such as organ voluntaries, vocal pieces, works for piano solo, and about 200 songs.^[2]

His works had some currency in the nineteenth century: Johann Nepomuk Hummel's op. 123 is a Fantasie for Piano on themes by Hummel and von Neukomm. Boston's Handel and Haydn Society, for example, gave 55 performances of his oratorio David during the 1830s.^[5]

• Vincenzo Cernicchiaro. Storia della musica nel Brasile. Milano, Fratelli Riccioni, 1926.
• Don Randel. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music. Harvard, 1996, p. 633.

• Free scores by Sigismund von Neukomm at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)