London was an appropriate choice of city for a conference on Haydn and the commercial aspects of music. Haydn, after all, adapted to his audience during his own visits to London just as avidly as his public bought his musical offerings and bought into his image. The two-day conference was jointly organized by the British Library and the Haydn Society of Great Britain and took place in the British Library's superbly appointed conference centre. Although not all papers focused primarily on commercial aspects of music relating to Haydn, it was a theme rarely far from the minds of the participants.

The first three speakers demonstrated the importance of the publishing business to differing aspects of Haydn's music and reception. David Wyn Jones (Cardiff University) focused on Haydn's positive reception in England during his two visits, and amused the audience by highlighting the mercenary streak in Haydn's nature, which received extra impetus with his immersion in the highly commercial world of London. The paper also highlighted the connections between English and Austrian society; Haydn's patriotic and anti-French ‘Sailor's Song’ (hXXVIa:31) was used as a case study of the similarities and differences between the two countries. In order to pass the Austrian censors, the language of the English original was toned down in the Viennese version (published in 1798). In the next paper, I (Alan Davison, University of Otago) contextualized Thomas Hardy's famous portrait of Haydn as one sally in the publicity war headed by Salomon, Charles Burney and the music publisher John Bland. The portrait was both a celebration and defence of Haydn, and it presented the composer as a genius of invention and taste. Examining Muzio Clementi's letters and other documents, David Rowland (Open University) looked at the connection between Haydn and Clementi from the perspective of the latter's publishing business. Longman, Clementi & Co. had strong links to Haydn, and Clementi had extensive contacts in the musical world, which he used to his advantage to promote his sales and expand his catalogue. Clementi emerged as an astute and enthusiastic advocate of Haydn's music, selling both new and earlier music of the composer and negotiating with other publishers such as Artaria, Pleyel and Breitkopf.

Ingrid Fuchs (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna) considered the question: for whom did Haydn and Mozart compose? While Haydn's chamber music was performed widely by amateurs, they possessed a wide range of capabilities, and his music reflects varied musical and technical requirements. Haydn often praised the skills of a number of female pianists especially and wrote some particularly challenging sonatas for them. Moreover, Fuchs stressed the increasing differentiation between public and private concerts of string quartets. In the public domain, string quartets were transplanted to the concert hall in London in the 1790s, much sooner than in Vienna, and they were performed in nearly all of the Hanover Square Room concerts of Salomon. Thomas Tolley (University of Edinburgh) returned to iconography for his subject matter, noting that Haydn was an enthusiastic collector of prints. In the two hundred or so prints catalogued in an inventory compiled after his death, many dated from the early 1790s in London. Amongst these were several humorous prints by the artist Henry William Bunbury, focusing on the absurdities of polite English behaviour. Haydn most likely knew the artist personally and obviously valued his satirical prints: some were framed and on display in his house. Haydn appears to have enjoyed the wit of Bunbury's scenes, but, more importantly, he may have gained an insight into English social conventions through them. The topic of Haydn's relationship with creative men and women in England was continued by Caroline Grigson (University College London), who looked at fresh evidence relating to the two sets of Original Canzonettas (hXXVIa:25–30 and 31–36). The first was set to texts by the second-generation bluestocking Anne Hunter and published by Corri, Dussek and Co. Grigson discussed Haydn's friendship with the widowed Hunter and considered it unlikely that there was any opportunity for a romantic involvement between them.

The first day of the conference ended with Miguel Ángel Marín (Universidad de La Rioja), who presented evidence that Haydn's music was available and possibly performed in Madrid during the composer's lifetime. Not only was the string quartet well established in Madrid in the 1770s – works by Boccherini, Canales, Brunetti and others were present in publication lists – but Haydn's own quartets were available by no later than 1774. Records held mainly in ecclesiastical collections indicate that Haydn's symphonies were performed in church services. The precise influence of Haydn's music on local composers is not yet well understood and further scholarship is required to tease out the possibly complex interrelationships between composers and publishers.

The second day began with a discussion by Balázs Mikusi (Cornell University) of Haydn's own ‘British Library’, so designated by Mikusi because many of its printed scores were collected by Haydn during his trips to London. The large collection of music that Haydn had obtained over many years went to Eszterháza after his death, where it fell into neglect in the twentieth century. Mikusi further observed that while it would be tempting to view the collection as a sign of Haydn's personal taste, much of the music was sent as complimentary copies, often with dedications. As such, the material reflects the composer's social networks more than personal proclivities. Rupert Ridgewell (British Library, London) picked up the theme of publishing again by scrutinizing the relationship between Haydn and Artaria. The Trios for Piano, Violin and Violoncello hXV:6–8 provided a fascinating case study in printing practices, as the edition did not meet the composer's standards. The fault was not entirely the publisher's. As music publishing was relatively new in Vienna in the 1770s and 1780s, Artaria had to work initially with freelance engravers and a limited number of printing presses. Furthermore, its ambitions were not matched by its resources. Vienna also provided the context for the survey by Péter Barna (Budapest) of English keyboard instruments in that city. Vienna's Anglophilia at the time was reflected in its taste for English instruments, and the ledgers of Artaria indicate that pianos especially were in demand for clients from upper society.

In a closely argued account of Anton Wranitzky's string-quintet version of The Creation, Wiebke Thormählen (University of Southampton) argued for a reassessment of the importance of chamber arrangements of large-scale works. During the reign of Joseph II, art was seen to have a pragmatic role in a person's general cultivated knowledge (Bildung), and the performance of an arrangement such as Wranitzky's was considered an exercise in moral feeling. Chris Wiley (City University, London) addressed another topic in need of re-evaluation: Haydn biography. He deconstructed several episodes in Haydn's life that have attained mythic status by considering their underlying topoi and motifs. The trope of the composer rising through the social structure was particularly present in nineteenth-century writings.

To end the conference, Otto Biba (Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna) provided an entertaining and revisionist account of Haydn as opera Kapellmeister. Haydn's attention to dramatic texts was demonstrated by his annotations in and revisions to a libretto of ‘Piramo e Tisbe’, an azione tragica by Venanzio Rauzzini (Vienna, 1777). Haydn was keenly aware of the original text's limitations and sought to improve both the logic of the situations and the sophistication of the expression of human emotions. Although the opera was not actually performed at Eszterháza, the document is a revealing testament to Haydn's all-round musical and dramatic skills.