Manfred Symphony, Op. 58
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

 

Composed in 1885. Premiered on March 23, 1886 in Moscow, conducted by Max von Erdmannsdoerfer.

One of the highlights of Hector Berlioz’s second visit to Russia, in 1867-1868, was the performance of his composition inspired by Byron’s Childe Harold, the symphony Harold in Italy. The Russian passion for Byron was still strong after it had largely run its course in the rest of Europe, and Berlioz’s colorful, programmatic work created a considerable stir among both public and musicians. Harold in Italy was the direct inspiration for Rimsky-Korsakov’s Antar Symphony of 1868 and also caused Vladimir Stassov (the influential journalist and philosophical shepherd of the group of nationalistic composers known as “The Five”) to concoct a literary program for a four-movement symphony based on another of Byron’s writings, Manfred. Stassov sent his précis to Mili Balakirev, one of the members of “The Five,” who, finding the sketch “not in harmony with my intimate moods,” chose not to set it to music. Balakirev elaborated Stassov’s outline, and sent it to Berlioz with the hope of inspiring a sequel to Harold in Italy. He even suggested the use in the proposed work of an idée fixe — a motto heard in every movement — a technique that had proven successful in the Symphonie Fantastique. Berlioz, tired, ill and nearing the end of his life, declined. Balakirev’s scenario lay fallow for fourteen years.

In 1882, Balakirev wrote Tchaikovsky a letter full of praise for the tone poems The Tempest and Francesca da Rimini and thanking him for the recent dedication of the revised version of Romeo and Juliet, whose form and subject Balakirev had originally suggested. He took the occasion to offer Tchaikovsky the long-dormant Manfred program. Tchaikovsky replied that the plan seemed too close to the Berlioz model to allow for much originality, and told Balakirev that he was not interested. Two years later, Balakirev met Tchaikovsky at the first performance of Eugene Onegin at St. Petersburg’s Imperial Theater, and again urged him to consider Manfred. Tchaikovsky, having become more familiar with the poet’s works since Balakirev first suggested the topic, arrived at the realization that this might indeed be a subject for him. Balakirev sent him a revised version of the scenario, even suggesting keys, moods and forms, and Tchaikovsky took it and a newly purchased copy of the original poem with him on a visit to Switzerland. He decided to go ahead with the project, despite reservations about composing to a literary plan. (“It is a thousand times pleasanter to compose without a program,” he confided to a friend.) He made sketches for Manfred during his spring 1885 travels, and settled down to serious work on the score when he returned home in the summer.

The new piece did not come easily. “Nothing has ever been so difficult for me or cost me so much effort as the symphony I am now composing,” he wrote in a letter. Work on Manfred was made more difficult by his busy schedule. He was beginning production plans for the just-completed opera The Cherevitzki, and he had a waiting commission for another opera (The Enchantress) which he had to begin before Manfred was finished. When Manfred was finally completed in December, he was curiously ambivalent about it. He called it “my finest symphonic composition,” yet refused to accept any payment from his publisher, Jurgenson, because he thought it would never be popular enough with audiences to repay the investment. Though the work has never enjoyed the acclaim of the late numbered symphonies, it remains one of Tchaikovsky’s most gripping orchestral essays.

Though Byron called Manfred a drama, he never intended that it be staged but rather read as a poetic recitation. He wrote to his publisher that it was “quite impossible to stage,” and that negotiations with the Drury Lane Theatre to mount a production “have given me the greatest contempt.” In 1817, Byron described the haunted, illusionary world of Manfred: “It is in three acts, of a very wild, metaphysical, and inexplicable kind. Almost all of the persons — but two or three — are spirits of the earth and air, or the waters; the scene is in the Alps; the hero is a kind of magician, who is tormented by a species of remorse, the cause of which is left half unexplained. He wanders about invoking these spirits, which appear to him, and are of no use; he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil Principle, in propria persona, to evocate a ghost, which appears and gives him an ambiguous and disagreeable answer; and in the third act he is found by an attendant dying in the tower, where he had studied his art.”

The symphonic plan that Stassov and Balakirev wove around Byron’s play contains four scenes, which are faithfully mirrored by Tchaikovsky’s music.

“I. Manfred wanders over the Alps,” begins Balakirev’s outline. “His life is ruined; many burning questions remain unanswered; nothing remains to him but memory. The form of the ideal Astarte floats before his fancy; in vain he calls to her; only the echoes of the rocks give back her name. His thoughts and memories burn his brain and eat out his heart; he seeks and pleads for oblivion which none can give him.

“II. Scherzo fantastique. The spirit of the Alps appears to Manfred in the rainbow of the waterfall.

“III. A mood entirely different from the earlier movements. Program: the customs of the Alpine huntsmen, patriarchal, simple and kindly. With these customs Manfred comes into contact, and is in sharp contrast. Naturally, you must first of all have a little hunting motive, only here the greatest caution is necessary so as not to fall into triviality. Heaven preserve you from the commonplaces after the manner of German fanfares and hunting music!

“IV. Finale. A wild Allegro that depicts the caves of Arimanes, to which Manfred has gone to seek a meeting with Astarte. The contrast to this infernal orgy will be given by the appearance of Astarte’s shade. The music must be light, clear and maidenly. Then a repetition of the pandemonium; then sunset and the death of Manfred.”

In composing Manfred, Tchaikovsky not only followed Balakirev’s program, but also adopted the technique of idée fixe that he suggested. The idée fixe melody, symbolizing Byron’s romantic protagonist, is presented at the Symphony’s outset and occurs in every movement. The work, especially in its opening movement, does not follow traditional symphonic forms, and it is perhaps for that reason that Tchaikovsky did not include it among his numbered symphonies, considering it rather a multi-movement symphonic poem.

So truly do the individual movements reflect the literary scheme given above that they need little further comment. Manfred is one of Tchaikovsky’s most colorful orchestral pictures, exhibiting a richness and variety of instrumental sonorities unsurpassed by any of his other compositions. “Of all Tchaikovsky’s works, it is Manfred which has least deserved its fate,” wrote John Warrack in his biography of the composer. “He constructs a form of his own which is remarkably successful as an expression of his program.... It is a musical portrait, as strongly drawn as Berlioz’s Harold, of the guilty, doomed sensibility which was perhaps the aspect of Byron which most vividly appealed to the Russians.”

Notes by Dr. Richard E. Rodda