Walton wrote much of his Violin Concerto during a stay in Italy and completed the work in 1939, which was commissioned by Jascha Heifetz and premiered by him in Ohio later that year. The Cello Concerto was completed in 1956, the result of a commission from Gregor Piatigorsky, who premiered the work in 1957 at Symphony Hall, Boston. Walton regarded this work as the best of his three solo concertos.