Composed in 1982 Malcolm Arnold's Trumpet Concerto was written to mark the centenary of the foundation of the Royal College of Music. Before devoting himself entirely to composition, Arnold was the principal trumpet in the Philharmonia Orchestra, and his mastery of the instrument is evident throughout this brilliantly compact 12-minute work.
'Contemporary-music-without-tears has always been his aim, and this succinct little three-movement work showed him as skilful as ever in unpretentious directness of utterance, as it were in the vernacular. For the soloist it is a gift, alike in the first movement's almost indispensable fanfare-like challenges, in melody someitmes as nostalgic as Poulenc (especially haunting in the seductively scored central Andante) and in the Finale's flashes of virtuosity.'
The Times (?Joan Chissell), 31 January 1983