At length the date of the first concert arrived, and a brilliant
audience rewarded the enterprise, completely filling the Hanover
Square Rooms, at that time the principal concert hall in London.
It had been opened in 1775 by J. C. Bach, the eleventh son of the
great Sebastian, when the advertisements announced that "the
ladies' tickets are red and the gentlemen's black." It was there
that, two years after the date of which we are writing, "Master
Hummel, from Vienna," gave his first benefit; Liszt appeared in
1840, when the now familiar term "recital" was first used;
Rubinstein made his English debut in 1842; and in the same year
Mendelssohn conducted his Scotch Symphony for the first time in
England. In 1844 the "wonderful little Joachim," then a youth of
thirteen in a short jacket, made the first of his many subsequent
visits to London, and played in the old "Rooms."

Hoops and Swords

So much for the associations of the concert hall in which Haydn
directed some of his finest symphonies. And what about the
audiences of Haydn's time? It was the day of the Sedan chair,
when women waddled in hoops, like that of the lady mentioned in
the Spectator, who appeared "as if she stood in a large drum."
Even the royal princesses were, in Pope's phrase, "armed in ribs
of steel" so wide that the Court attendants had to assist their
ungainly figures through the doorways. Swords were still being
worn as a regulation part of full dress, and special weapons were
always provided at a grand concert for the use of the
instrumental solo performers, who, when about to appear on the
platform, were girt for the occasion by an attendant, known as
the "sword-bearer." [See Musical Haunts in London, F. G. Edwards,