ABSTRACT
In the late 1780s Johann Peter Salomon began to experience increasing difficulty in maintaining a position as a public leader, even as second choice to Wilhelm Cramer. Looking at the decade as a whole, the number of times that Salomon's name is mentioned in London concert advertisements in Simon McVeigh's database illustrates a clear trend. The fall on this chart, especially sharp in 1788 and 1789, represents Salomon's generally diminishing prospects as a 'public' leader. If a similar chart were drawn for Cramer, it would show no such decline. Statistics demonstrate clearly enough Salomon's declining public career; so too do one or two individual failures. Salomon made the best of his disappointment by looking for other opportunities. In Walker's Hibernian Magazine for June 1789, it was reported that: 'Last Night, the Amateur Society gave a concert to an elegant and brilliant company of ladies of the first fashion, at which the celebrated Salomon, Sperati, and Mahoun assisted'.
