London calling

Clifford Hall recounts Haydn's huge successes in the English capital, a far cry from the composer's hard-up days in a freezing Vienna garret

- Clifford Hall

Joseph Haydn looked every bit the European celebrity on the night of 4 May 1795. Newly opened in 1791 after a fire, the King's Theatre glowed in the brilliant flicker of candle chandeliers. At the front of the hall stood Haydn in full formal dress, as eyewitnesses later recalled seeing him, 'in a tie wig, with a sword at his side'. The concertgoers – London's most ardent connoisseurs of music – spilled into every available seat, their silks rustling as they turned their eyes toward the 63-year-old composer. It was his night, his long-awaited benefit, and the evening would become the stuff of legend.

The programme showcased the breadth of his genius, with half the works performed being his own. Premiering 230 years ago, his final English symphony, today known as the 'London' Symphony (No. 104), ended the first half of the concert. As the Morning Chronicle reported two days later, 'He rewarded the good intentions of his friends by writing a new overture for the occasion, which for fullness, richness and majesty, in all its parts, is thought by some of the best judges to surpass all his other compositions.'

Haydn himself was no less pleased. Reflecting on the evening's triumph, he recorded in his diary, 'The whole company was thoroughly pleased and so was I. I made 4,000 gulden this evening: such a thing is possible only in England' - a sum equivalent to £45,000 today, it was a windfall indeed. By the end of his 1791 and '95 London visits, Haydn had earned 24,000 gulden and netted 13,000 - equivalent to more than 20 years of working for the Esterházy court, seat of the powerful Hungarian family whose patronage had shaped most of his professional life.