ABSTRACT
The absence of Viotti in Salomon's tenth concert of 1794 was probably due to the fact that he had only three days earlier returned from Bath, where he had performed at Rauzzini's famous Passion Week concerts. An account of these is given in a series of seven letters dated 16–25 April 1794 from Viotti to Margaret Chinnery in the Powerhouse Museum Chinnery Family Papers (CFP) collection. Noted by Kenneth James in his Concert Life in Eighteenth Century Bath, these Viotti concerts have gone unnoticed by all Viotti's biographers. Viotti was in Bath at the invitation of Venanzio Rauzzini, the Italian cas trato who had come to London in 1774 to perform in the Italian opera at the King's Theatre. Three years later he had retired to Bath where he instigated the highly successful Bath concerts at the New Assembly Rooms.
