A recording of a work for piano and orchestra by Ralph Vaughan Williams never previously performed, is to be released later this year.

The single-movement Fantasia, about 25 minutes in length, was begun in 1896, while Vaughan Williams was in his second period as a student at the Royal College of Music. He revised it six years later, and made further refinements in 1904. His widow Ursula Vaughan Williams, however, later removed the piece from circulation, writing ‘withdrawn’ in red ink on the copied manuscript now held by the British Library.

It is a verdict with which pianist Mark Bebbington, who will record the work next month, disagrees. ‘There’s such an obvious degree of care and dedication invested in the piece’, he says. While admitting that it isn’t a ‘buried masterpiece’, the work does offer an insight into the youthful composer’s influences and emerging style – Bebbington cites Franck, Liszt and Scriabin as influences he detected in the work. ‘The piece clearly points the way to later works and the genius to come.’ Those later works include, for example, the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, which followed in 1910. ‘There’s a chorale passage in the work that is strikingly reminiscent of the Tallis Fantasia’s soundworld’ says Bebbington.

‘The Fantasia functions like a crucible of styles, which I suspect is why Ursula Vaughan Williams wanted it to be withdrawn,’ adds Bebbington. ‘She came on the scene long after Ralph had established his clear identity as a composer; I believe the Fantasia represented too much of a stylistic mixture for her. But what else would you expect from a composer in his late 20s, early 30s? He manages the structure so well for a young composer, producing a well honed, virtuoso work for piano and orchestra and something far greater than the sum of its musical ideas. It has the stamp of mature RVW together with exciting elements of his earlier artistic personality that I believe have been unfairly neglected.’

The recording of the Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra – made with the support of the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust – will takes place next month with the Ulster Orchestra conducted by George Vass, for release by Somm Records in November. The disc will also contain another world premiere recording, William Mathias’ Piano Concerto No 1, together with the Welsh composer’s Piano Concerto No 2.

The recording follows the rediscovery and first complete performance of A Cambridge Mass, written by the composer in 1899, earlier this year.