CHAPTER V

FIRST LONDON VISIT--1791-1792

English Music about 1791--Salomon--Mozart and Haydn--Terms for
London--Bonn and Beethoven--Haydn Sea-Sick--Arrives in London--
An Enthusiastic Welcome--Ideas of the Metropolis--At Court--
Unreasoning Rivalries--Temporarily eclipsed--Band and Baton--
A Rehearsal Incident--Hanover Square Rooms--Hoops and Swords--
The "Surprise" Symphony--Gallic Excitement--New Compositions--
Benefit and Other Concerts--Haydn on Handel--Oxford Doctor of
Music--The "Oxford" Symphony--Relaxations--Royalty again--Pleyel
--Close of Season--Herschel--Haydn at St Paul's--London
Acquaintances--Another Romance--Mistress Schroeter--Love-Letters
--Haydn's Note-Book.

English Music about 1791

Haydn came to England in 1791. It may occur to the reader to ask
what England was doing in music at that time, and who were the
foremost representatives of the art. The first question may be
partially answered from the literature of the period. Thus
Jackson, in his Present State of Music in London, published the
year after Haydn's arrival, remarks that "instrumental music has
been of late carried to such perfection in London by the
consummate skill of the performers that any attempt to beat the
time would be justly considered as entirely needless." Burney,
again, in his last volume, published in 1789, says that the great
improvement in taste during the previous twenty years was "as