The Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor was written between the autumn of 1829 and the winter of 1830. Paganini had already made his triumphant Viennese debut (1828) and was undertaking a tour of Germany. He enchanted audiences with his first three concerts, but needed new repertoire. In between tours he wrote the Fourth, and although he told his publisher of the idea of ‘taking the flower’ of the new concerto to Paris, it was premiered in Frankfurt am Main on April 26^th  1830. He performed it several more times in Germany before presenting it in the French capital. The work was met with mixed reviews: for some it was ‘delightful’, for others ‘vulgarly virtuosic’. The violinist Ludwig Spohr remarks: “There is a strange mixture of consummate genius, infantilism and lack of taste in the composition and style of the concerto, which alternately fascinates and repels”. In Paris, however, critics praised its original form and “picturesque violin effects”.

The Concerto No. 4 is in the traditional three-part form. It begins with a lively majestic allegro with the usual solo cadenza, followed by a melancholy adagio and the “atacca” ( no pause) continues with a galloping gallant rondo for the finale. Of course, the full range of bravura Paganini instrumentation and sensuality is powerfully present. The composer dedicates this opus to his beloved son Achilles, whom he himself cared for devotedly. As he kept the orchestral score solely for himself, the concerto has long been considered lost. In 1936 a dealer bought the sheet music from Paganini’s heirs, and the score was later bought back by musicologist Natale Gallini, but the violin soloist’s violin has never been found. After a long search, Gallini was able to find the missing part in a collection of sheet music belonging to the famous Italian double bassist Giovanni Bottesini. He gave the complete score to his son, conductor Franco Gallini, who gave the ‘second’ premiere of the concerto on March 23^rd,  1955 with soloist Arthur Grumiau and the Orchestre National de Belgique.

The first performance of the work in Bulgaria was at the International Sofia Music Weeks Festival on June  1^st, 1971 with soloist Ruggiero Ricci and the Sofia Philharmonic under the baton of Pierre Colombo.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.   – the words of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) can be put as a motto to each of the genres that he transformed with his free thought and traced their path to new horizons. These are the piano sonatas, the string quartets, the instrumental concertos, the symphonies, as well as the opera Fidelio, the Missa Solemnis, the oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives, and the symphonic overtures. There is no genre in which the composer can create and not be the “object” of his constant experimentation.

Before turning to the larger form of the symphony, Beethoven gained experience, trying out his new ideas in chamber music, which for him was a kind of creative laboratory. He composed his first Symphony in C major at the age of 30 in Vienna, the city where he settled in 1792 and lived for the rest of his life. He quickly became known as ‘a giant among pianists’. He measured his strength and emerged victorious in piano duels with rivals such as Clementi, Hummel and Kramer. He was unsurpassed in his improvisations on the piano, which captivated Viennese audiences. He was surrounded by attention and distinguished benefactors. One of them was Karl von Lichnowsky, who in 1800 granted him a generous stipend of 600 florins for two years.