«A memorable era in the instrumental music of this Kingdom»: Piedmontese Musicians in London in the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century

In the latter half of the 18th-century London, public concerts were as a main event in the social and cultural life on a par with opera: an unparalleled offer in Europe at the time, further enriched with entertainments set up in pleasure gardens, with music performances in charity institutions, and concerts at private residences. In no other European country, however, was music so consumed, as well as little fed by local composers’ work. Those who profited from the opportunities offered by such an unprecedented dynamic social and economical context, by theatres and musical societies, by aristocratic patronage, and by one of the most thriving publishing industry, were indeed mainly foreign artists, first of all the protagonists (and often the victims) of what musicologists have defined as a migration or dispersion (diaspora) of Italian musicians in the 18th century. A phenomenon that in violinists’ case registered striking numbers and that – even if in a different way, and because of the close bond between London and Turin – concerned major exponents of the so-called Piedmontese school of violin playing such as Felice Giardini, Gaetano Pugnani and Giovanni Battista Viotti