The work was commissioned by the Barbican Centre for the Britten Sinfonia and cellist Oliver Coates, to whom Muhly dedicated the piece.
[1] Reviewing the world premiere, Ivan Hewett of The Daily Telegraph praised the Cello Concerto as "instinctively 'musical' in its sharply heard orchestral palette, and its way of energising string cantilenas with off-beat Stravinskian accents."
Hewett nevertheless added, "the promising opening soon lost its way, and attempts to restore direction through sudden harmonic shifts couldn't dispel a debilitating sense of drift.
Reviewing the premiere recording of the piece by the cellist Zuill Bailey and the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jun Märkl, Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle called the piece a "lush, invigorating score" and described is as "suffused with a luxuriant beauty that is unafraid — for better or worse — of teetering into sentimentality".
Russell Platt of The New Yorker wrote:Part of what makes a great classical composition unique is its ability to inhabit a vivid present, while touching upon what’s happened before and hinting at what’s to come.