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.
There is a specific sound that belongs only to Vienna. It lives in the dust motes dancing in the sunlight of the Musikverein, in the lilt of a phrase played schwungvoll (with swing), and in the tension between tradition and innovation. Wiener Sinfonietta - Metamorphoses Symphonies -...
Under the baton of their fiery young music director, the ensemble has curated a program that treats the symphony as a living organism. The question they ask is simple yet radical: What happens to a symphony when it passes through the crucible of the 21st century? The current cycle features three pillars of the Viennese canon, but not as you know them. Metamorphoses Symphonies is not a concert series
Vienna, Austria
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. And in the hands of this scrappy, brilliant
The funeral march is rarely as devastating as it is here. The Wiener Sinfonietta strips away the 20th-century varnish. They play with lean, transparent textures. You hear the violas gasping for breath. You hear the bassoons wailing. By the time the horns announce the new theme in the finale, the "hero" has not just died—he has transformed into something entirely new.
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