Collaborations between composers and performers have often produced fine works, as with this Concerto, first played in 1959 by Arnold's friend Julian Bream to whom it is dedicated. The problems of writing for an instrument with few avante garde credentials are solved by a neo-classical style into which the composer introduces modern harmonies and progressions. The first-movement themes are graceful, and the dialogue between solo instrument and chamber orchestra intimate are brilliant by turns. The slow movement, inspired by the guitar playing of Django Reinhardt (1920-1953), has an emotional intensity distant from the cliché-ridden Spanish and Latin-American mannerisms of the popular guitar. A long bluesy theme (though not based on blues harmony) takes the Concerto into deep waters, high guitar harmonics casting an eerie, chromatic sheen over a gently-rocking orchestral accompaniment. The third movement, an eccentric Minuet in Rondo form in 6/8 time, restores the genial balance until a muted horn and clarinet together recall the second-movement theme. The Concerto ends with tragic overtones, guitar and 'cellos fading into silence on repeated low Es. Both Arnold and Bream were wary of the directions in which contemporary music was heading in the 50s, and remained faithful to diatonic tonality and more contemporary influences, such as jazz and popular music, though no trace of the latter appears in the Concerto. The composer's biographer, Piers Burton-Page, calls it "One of Arnold's most outstanding inventions. ... Once heard, never forgotten" ("Philharmonic Concerto", Methuen, 1994). It has rarely been out of the recorded music catalogs.

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