‘Music is born of mystery and is an enigma. The meaning and purpose of music is to engage and guide the listener, to draw them into a particular game, to evoke feelings. That way, you are always sure of yourself in the creative process. Not always in life.’ So said Anatolyjus Šenderovas in an interview. I felt the same way about his violin concerto: it drew me into a listening process before I could explain why.

In an obituary on the death of Anatolijus Šenderovas in 2019, the Lithuanian Music Information Centre listed characteristic features of his music, which can also be found in the violin concerto:

"The specific harmonic colour, the arrhythmic, improvisational development of the musical material, the development of a work from a specific thematic motto, a pronounced emotionality and razor-sharp contrasts – all this gave the music of Anatolijus Šenderovas an unmistakable sound that was not lacking in magical energy. It blended archaic motifs from Oriental music with more abstract features of European atonal music. In his work, he did not adhere to a particular compositional system, but chose from the wealth of means at his disposal those that he considered most important for each work."

Šenderovas's most influential teachers were Eduardas Balsys, one of the most important modernist composers in Lithuania at the time, and Orest Yevlakhov, a student of Dmitri Shostakovich, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). Being Jewish was essential to Šenderovas's work: he grew up in Vilnius in a former ghetto. Some of his ancestors were klezmer musicians and came from the Ashkenazi Jewish folk music tradition. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was important for Šenderovas to have the opportunity to travel to Israel and explore his Jewish roots through music. Many of his works end as if the music were dissolving into heaven, as he himself once said.

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