The main point of this concert was to celebrate the 40-year career of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s Associate Principal Trumpet, Paul Goodchild. He took up the position in 1985, but first played in the trumpet section full time at the age of 18. His father Cliff Goodchild was the orchestra’s Principal Tuba from 1951 to 1987, so it’s a long-standing family connection. Paul played a work composed for a previous SSO Principal Trumpet, John Robertson: the Trumpet Concerto by William Lovelock, an English composer who spent his most productive years in Australia. It was written in 1968 specifically for an RCA recording (the coupling, I recall, was the 1948 Trumpet Concerto by Raymond Hanson). Although the SSO played it for that recording, tonight it was given its first concert performance by the orchestra.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra Associate Principal Trumpet Paul Goodchild. Photo © Ant Geernaert

The work is in three movements: the first opening with the kind of jaunty mid-20th century English music we associate with Ealing comedies. A gentle slow movement of a misty, nostalgic tone is followed by a vigorous finale mostly in triple time. The...