Frederick Thurston served for years as principal clarinet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The principal trumpet for that orchestra during much of the 1940s was none other than Malcolm Arnold, who therefore knew Thurston's playing well. It was for him that Arnold wrote one of his first orchestral compositions, the Clarinet Concerto No. 1, which was given its first performance at Usher Hall in Edinburgh on August 29, 1949. Thurston, to whom the work is dedicated, was soloist, and Reginald Jacques conducted his eponymous orchestra.

Scored for clarinet and strings, the Concerto No. 1 is an amiable, though somewhat astringent, neo-Classically flavored work in three movements. The first, an Allegro, is lively and tuneful, with some slightly bluesy inflections and quite a few tricky rhythms for the soloist to negotiate. Somewhat darker and more dissonant, with a continuing rhythmic undercurrent, is the second movement Andante con moto. Originally, Arnold had left the clarinet silent for considerable stretches in this movement. In an early rehearsal, Thurston suggested that Arnold give the soloist something to do in a few of those passages. Apparently, Arnold added some clarinet bits straight into the full score overnight. The tense atmosphere of this movement carries into the brief, nervously energetic Allegro con fuoco finale.

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