Excerpts from Julius Röntgen’s last major work, his Edinburgh Symphony, have been performed by harpist Julia Somerville after the lost score was rediscovered by a musicologist.

The symphony was last performed in 1930, under the baton of Donald Francis Tovey, then Reid Professor of Music at Edinburgh University. Röntgen donated the manuscript to the University on the occasion of his being award an honorary doctorate.

The score was thought lost, but was recently unearthed in the Tovey Archive by Richard Witts, a lecturer at the university.

Tovey was one of Julius Röntgen’s most influential supporters. He included a study of the symphony in his famous ‘Essays in Musical Analysis’. Tovey was particularly taken by the deceptive simplicity of the work’s themes. He writes: ‘[The] themes look as if anybody could have thought of them...and, without affection or artificiality, they all have the ring of epigrams. The enemy may blaspheme when he sees them in writing; but their simplicity is as dangerous as that of a Chinese philosopher.’

The University is hoping to be able to stage a performance of the entire work in the city’s Usher Hall.