After over 250 years, new season dawns for Vivaldi

A LONG-LOST flute concerto by one of the world's most celebrated composers received its first public performance for more than 250 years last night.

The composition by Vivaldi, which was discovered in a Scottish archive after more than a quarter of a millennium, was performed at Perth Concert Hall.

The Italian wrote Il Gran Mogol in around 1730, but musicologists thought it had perished, with the only record of its existence appearing in an early 18th century sale catalogue.

The work was discovered last year by a university researcher at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh. The seven-and-a-half minute concerto was performed last night by the La Serenissima group.

Speaking before the concert, principal flautist Katy Bircher, the first to play the piece, said: "It does feel rather a big responsibility."

Dr Andrew Woolley from Southampton University discovered the manuscript last April, preserved among the family papers of the Marquesses of Lothian.