Wiener Sinfonietta - Metamorphoses Symphonies -... Review

-- Alexander Hoffmann, Contributor The encore of the evening? A stunning arrangement of Strauss’s Metamorphosen for the Sinfonietta’s exact forces. Bring tissues.

Vienna, Austria

The Sinfonietta performs Haydn with period-appropriate clarity, but with a modern bow grip. The famous ending—where musicians leave the stage one by one—isn't played as a polite 18th-century joke. Here, it becomes a theatrical meditation on isolation. The final two violins hold their high E in a stark, bare-bulb spotlight. It feels less like a courtly gag and more like Samuel Beckett. Wiener Sinfonietta - Metamorphoses Symphonies -...

Metamorphosis in Motion: Wiener Sinfonietta Redefines the Symphony -- Alexander Hoffmann, Contributor The encore of the evening

This is the wild card. Rather than speculate on the missing third and fourth movements, the Sinfonietta commissioned a contemporary composer to finish the symphony using Schubert’s own sketches but filtered through a spectral harmonic lens. The result is haunting: the lyricism of the Lied colliding with the tension of Ligeti. The Sinfonietta Difference What sets the Wiener Sinfonietta apart from the major radio orchestras is their scale and flexibility. With a core of just 38 players (expanding as needed), every voice matters. There is no hiding in the back of the violin section. This is chamber music on a symphonic scale. The final two violins hold their high E

Metamorphoses Symphonies is not a concert series. It is an argument. It argues that a great piece of music isn't a monument; it is a seed. And in the hands of this scrappy, brilliant Viennese ensemble, those 200-year-old seeds are sprouting strange, beautiful, and terrifying new flowers.