Walton had been regarded as avant garde in his youth, but by 1957, when he was in his mid-fifties, he was seen as a composer in the romantic tradition, and some thought him old-fashioned by comparison with his younger English contemporary Benjamin Britten.
It received its first British performance within weeks, on 13 February 1957, again with Piatigorsky, this time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Malcolm Sargent at the Royal Festival Hall.
The music critic Frank Howes has written that the concerto "starts with a splash, as of a stone dropped into a pool, a chord on the vibraphone and hard, trills on a viola and an oscillating figure on the wind and upper strings.
[10] Walton's biographer Michael Kennedy calls the long opening theme "comprehensive and chromatic, with ambiguously unstable tonality … a seductively amorous invention".
[12] Howes comments that although it has the appearance of a scherzo, the allegro appassionato marking points to its being the emotional core of the work, as well as the most substantial and highly organised of the three movements.
[10] The third improvisation is a brilliant orchestral toccata; Howes calls it "a rumbustious affair with a good deal of percussion, glissandi for horns and harps, use of the piccolo and such excitements.
Even though Heyworth thought the concerto showed a marked "stagnation" in Walton's recent music, he praised the "singularly lovely epilogue, whose hushed, tranquil air seems to capture a vista of a calm sea spreading out into the night".
[20] The reviewer in The Manchester Guardian called the work "a modern masterpiece" showing the composer at his freshest and most inspired, substituting for the melancholy of Walton's "great concertos of the thirties" "something more serene".
"[22] Kennedy writes that although the work is "beautifully written, grateful to play and presents the listener with few problems", it is "too relaxed for its own good", occasionally episodic and inclined to re-use familiar Walton mannerisms.
The golden rays of the sun, the different colours of [Ischia's] light, the blue tones of the sea and the scent of the saltwater can be sensed with rare immediacy.
[24] Piatigorsky predicted that the concerto would be taken up by cellists from round the world,[7] and among those who have recorded the concerto after him are soloists from France (Pierre Fournier, Paul Tortelier), China/Australia (Li-Wei Qin), Germany (Daniel Müller-Schott), Hungary (János Starker), the Netherlands (Pieter Wispelwey), Switzerland (Christian Poltéra), and the US (Lynn Harrell, Mark Kosower, Yo-Yo Ma), as well as British cellists, including Robert Cohen, Steven Isserlis, Ralph Kirshbaum, Julian Lloyd Webber, Raphael Wallfisch and Paul Watkins.
[25] A 2009 recording by the cellist Jamie Walton and the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Alexander Briger was the first to use the revised 1974 version of the finale (adding the original as a separate bonus track).
The reviewer found that the recordings by Piatigorsky and Fournier were "essential reference"; considered Wispelwey's had the most imaginative and satisfying solo playing, let down by the orchestral accompaniment; and praised Yo-Yo Ma's lyricism.