The concerto takes about thirty minutes in performance.
This revised version was first performed on 17 January 1944, in Wolverhampton, by Holst and the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent.
Walton later revised the orchestration, in particular reducing the number of percussion instruments. In November 1941, at a Royal Philharmonic Society concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Walton conducted the first British performance, with the soloist Henry Holst, former leader of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, who had settled in England. The contract between composer and soloist gave Heifetz the exclusive rights to the concerto for two years, but as he could not travel to Britain he waived them to allow the work to be given there. Walton could not travel to the US, and the world premiere of the concerto was given by Heifetz and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur RodziĆski on 7 December 1939. The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 forced Heifetz and Walton to abandon their plans. It was agreed that he should premiere the work in Boston, with Walton conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and then, after several more performances in the US, Heifetz would give the British premiere in London in March 1940. The British Council hoped to present the premiere of the concerto during the 1939 New York World's Fair, along with new works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss and Arnold Bax given during the event, but Heifetz was otherwise committed on the proposed date of the concert. In mid-1939 he visited Heifetz in New York to work on the piece together, incorporating the violinist's suggestions for making the solo part as effective as possible. During the course of composition he was bitten by a tarantula and marked the incident by incorporating a tarantella into the work in a passage he called "quite gaga, I may say, and of doubtful propriety". After meeting Heifetz in London, Walton accepted a commission for a concerto, but he did not begin work on the piece until early 1938, when he went with his partner, Alice Wimborne, to Ravello, where he worked on the concerto for several months. In 1936 William Walton had established a position among the leading British composers of the day, but he was a slow and far from prolific worker and in that year he felt obliged to choose between accepting a commission from Jascha Heifetz or one from Joseph Szigeti and Benny Goodman, who wanted a work for violin and clarinet.