AUTOGRAPH MUSIC MANUSCRIPT ‘Song in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night’

Four page setting of Feste’s song ‘Come Away, Death’ from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Written over four oblong octavo pages (a bifolium extracted from a book of printed manuscript paper) with prettily embossed borders. Neukomm sets the music for a low voice over two verses and with a keyboard accompaniment that introduces and ends his setting. At the conclusion he has inscribed the manuscript ‘for Miss Giles. Ardwick Green 21/11 [18]32 Neukomm’.

Sigismund von Keukomm (1778-1858) was a disciple and amanuensis to Joseph Haydn who came to England in 1829. The recipient of the MS seems likely to be Elizabeth or Mary Giles, daughters of William Giles who had a school at Ardwick Green in Manchester around this time.