Percy Code is best known for his work as a conductor of ABC orchestras in their early days, helping to found the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and serving a 13-year stint as resident conductor with the SSO in the 1930s and 40s. He was also a prize-winning cornet player, conducting and playing in brass and theatre bands around Ballarat in Victoria, and a Sunday composer. Now euphonium player Dr Matthew van Emmerik has recorded Code’s entire solo output on the Potenza label.

Colleagues described Code as “somewhat colourless”, and this seems an apt description of his composing style. Very much of his time – between the two World Wars – and a great admirer of Elgar, his works show little of his idol’s imagination or skill. This disc is so middle of the road that we’re in danger of being run over. Van Emmerik may well be doing a service to Code’s memory by recording these 11 pieces – and thereby increasing the pitifully small euphonium repertoire – but I fear the album will be appreciated by a very slim audience.

There are some mild fun pieces – Miranda, for instance, which obviously stretches van Emmerik’s technique – but there is no disguising the fact that this is fairly ordinary music giving off a whiff of charm from a bygone era. You feel listening to this album that it should be accompanying a showing of CJ Dennis’s silent movie classic The Sentimental Bloke. One for the brass enthusiasts.