Manfred: Symphony in four scenes

Op.58

Lento lugubre - moderato con moto - andante

Vivace con spirito

Andante con moto

Allegro con fuoco

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1943)

Manfred: Symphony in four scenes

after the dramatic poem by Byron Op.58

Lento lugubre - moderato con moto - andante

Vivace con spirito

Andante con moto

Allegro con fuoco

The original inspiration of the Manfred Symphony – though distant from Tchaikovsky’s own conception of the work by at least two removes – was Berlioz’s Harold en Italie. That score had so impressed the critic and thinker Vladimir Stasov when he heard Berlioz conduct it in St Petersburg in 1868 that he was moved to turn to another work by Byron and draw up a parallel four-movement programme for a Manfred Symphony. He offered it to his composer associate Mily Balakirev who, feeling that it didn’t “harmonise with my inner frame of mind,” loftily passed it on to Berlioz, who not surprisingly declined.

The project then remained dormant until 1882 when Tchaikovsky renewed contact with Balakirev. The latter took the opportunity to press on him the Manfred programme in much the same way as he had coaxed him into Romeo and Juliet thirteen years earlier, detailing not only the poetic content but the key scheme as well. Decidedly cool about the project at first, when he actually read Byron’s dramatic poem Tchaikovsky found himself in passionate sympathy with Byron’s hero – not least perhaps because of Manfred’s forbidden love for Astarte and his (and, indeed, Byron’s) burden of sexual guilt. Anyway, the work was written within a period of months in the summer of 1885. While abandoning Balakirev’s B flat minor for B minor – for which failure he duly apologised – Tchaikovsky remained faithful to the programme worked out by Stasov eighteen years earlier, just as he had allowed himself to be guided by Stasov in writing his Tempest fantasia in 1873.

For the first movement of the Symphony, Stasov envisaged Manfred wandering in the Alps: his life is broken, his obsessive fateful questions remain unanswered; in life nothing remains for him except memories. From time to time memories of his ideal, Astarte, creep in upon him. Memories and thoughts burn, gnaw at him. He seeks and begs for oblivion. Tchaikovsky’s Manfred motif appears at the very beginning of the symphony as a cry of pain on bass clarinet and bassoons with stabbing chords on lower strings. Manfred is characterised too by a fervent theme for unison strings introduced by a sighing falling seventh. These themes, which in formal terms represent the first subject of the first movement, are developed in rising tempo and increasing agony. The second subject is a memory of Astarte, Manfred’s dead and beloved sister, unmistakably represented by tender muted strings and then developed as passionately as the Manfred theme itself.

In the middle movements Tchaikovsky reversed the order of scenes laid down by Stasov and put this one first: the Alpine fairy appearing to Manfred in the rainbow from the spray of the waterfall. In form it is very simple, even though the orchestration is complex and highly original in its depiction of the waterfall. The trio section, beginning with first violins accompanied by harps, represents the song of the Alpine Fairy. Manfred himself makes a comparatively lyrical appearance here on violas and then, later, a full-scale dramatic entry before the reprise of the waterfall music.

Stasov’s concept of the pastoral movement was no doubt influenced by Berlioz’s Scène aux Champs in the Symphonie Fantastique: the way of life of the Alpine hunters, full of simplicity, good nature, of a naive patriarchal character with which Manfred clashes, affording a sharp contrast. . . . Tchaikovsky’s concept of the movement was also influenced by Berlioz but at no loss to his own melodic personality, as the lovely oboe theme in G major indicates and, even more, the little rustic episode for woodwind alone. The contrast of the Manfred attitude to life, as expressed by horns and trumpets just before the reprise, is not easily missed.

The scenario for the last movement is clearly influenced by Berlioz too. Stasov imagined a wild Allegro: in the subterranean halls of the infernal Arimanes. . . . There follows the arrival of Manfred, arousing a general outburst from the subterranean spirits. Finally the summons and appearance of Astarte will present a lovely contrast to this unbridled orgy . . . . Further on the diablerie comes again, finishing Largo - Manfred’s death. This time Tchaikovsky himself did not escape a direct Berlioz influence. But as the movement develops it creates its own atmosphere, particularly after the entry of the second theme for woodwind and subterranean spirits. The highly dramatic second entry of Manfred, at the fff height of activity, is followed by the shade of Astarte, accompanied by two harps, and her prophecy of his imminent release. An outburst of agony in B minor, taken straight from the first movement, precedes Manfred’s death, his requiem (beginning on harmonium in C major), and his transfiguration in B major.

Gerald Larner ©2007