Manfred symphony

Data sheet

Title: Ru Манфред ( Manfred )

Description: Symphony in four scenes according to the dramatic poem of Byron
Opus 58

Composition: May in September 1885
Dedicatee: Mili Balakirev
Creation: Moscow, 11 (26) March 1886, under the direction of max Erdmannsdörfer
Lasted: approximately 58 minutes

Structure

Lento legubre , in if minor
Vivace idiot spirito , in if minor
Andante idiot motor bike , in major ground
Allegro idiot fuoco , in if minor

Orchestration

History

The proposal of Balakirev with Berlioz

It is in 1867-1868 qu' Hector Berlioz accomplishes its last voyage in Russia. On this occasion, it receives a letter of Mili Balakirev which heard its Harold in Italy . Balakirev itself was requested by his/her friend Vladimir Stasov to write vast a Symphonie with program according to Byron; he writes in Berlioz:

You like Byron, which imagined so many attractive subjects which would be appropriate to you perfectly; I think of Manfred. It is impossible to refuse a symphony devoted to such a hero, for the only reason that Byron had a destiny similar to yours. Just like the English, who, limed in their morals pharisienne and manners of a conventional routine did not succeed in including/understanding it, the French did not include/understand you because they did not reach the level of musical maturity which would enable them to further see that art from somebody like Gounod. But let us return in Manfred… I imagine the first movement of your symphony in this manner:
the program of Stasov.
What a marvellous subject for a first movement! Second is in full opposition to the first. It would be something in the style of your scene to the fields of your first symphony. Third movement: a fantastic scherzo in the style of your Queen Mab . One can only imagine the delicate colors which you could use for the orchestra, new and original combinations that you tenteriez.
Fourth movement: an allegro wild and without reserve, full with insane audacity, in the style of your Harold .
In all the cases, I would like to know your opinion on this subject. It seems to me that it was conceived for you. In all the cases, that this subject speaks to you or not, I allow myself to tell you that it would be a sin not to treat it, you it first type-setter of Europe.

Balakirev, which as with its practice behaves as a team leader, described in Berlioz the ideal symphony which it could have composed, kind of mixture of the fantastic Symphonie , of Harold in Italy and of Romeo and Juliette . But Berlioz was to die the following year and Balakirev will wait fourteen years before reconsidering with this project.

The proposal of the project with Tchaïkovski

In 1881, Tchaïkovski dedicates to Balakirev its imagination-opening Romeo and Juliette . It is only one year later that it receives an answer of the dedicatee, dated September 28th (October 10th), which would depict Manfred itself and appears in each mouvement.
The tonality of the movement would be F minor sharp, the second topic would be in D majeur.
Second movement: Adagio pastoral ( the major). Of course, at the beginning of the movement, you will have to write something suggesting a hunting, but it will be necessary to be very attentive not to sink in the banal one. God preserves you vulgarities in the style of the German brass bands and the Jägermusik .
The appearance of Astarté should be done in D major flat, previously in major D in the first movement; it is here about a floating thought, of a kind of reminiscence immediately erased by the suffering of Manfred. This music must be light, transparent, air, ideal and virginal. Don't you agree that it is an attractive program? And if you are exerted suitably, I am certain that will be your masterpiece.

Balakirev then advises in Tchaïkovski to write the two parts of Flûte on the same range and to use only one line for the percussions instead of a complete range because: As you see it, I want that your future masterpiece is perfect in all points and that nothing must be perfectible. This subject is not only deep, but also contemporary, because it Malayan of mankind is due to the fact that the man does not manage to preserve his ideals. They are broken and there remains for the consolation of the heart only the only bitterness. Consequently, here from which all the tribulations come from our time

The impression of faintness which it evokes will be immediately perceptible as of the first measurements of Manfred, in the dissonances of the cords. But at this time, work is yet only one very vague project and the answer of Tchaïkovski, the 12 (24) November as causes of my coldness with regard to your program. I admire deeply his Manfred and I am accustomed unconsciously to attach the Manfred of Byron with that of Schumann, which I do not know how to approach the subject without hearing in me another music that of Schumann… But in the final analysis, I will read Manfred …

In October 1884, Tchaïkovski meets Balakirev at the time of the first of Eugene Onéguine . Balakirev then gives the original program of Stasov to him whose musical diagram was re-examined considerably by him. The principal tonality should be if minor flat; the second topic of the first movement was to be written in major D , and D major flat at the time of the réexposition. Balakirev gives the tonality of ground major flat for the larghetto and sticks to major D for the scherzo. He sees the final one written in if minor flat, the shade of Astarté in D major flat ( idiot sordini ) and finally the conclusive requiem in if major flat. He indicates for each movement of works of other type-setters, intended to help Tchaïkovski to find the inspiration: among them, Hamlet of Liszt and preludes of Chopin.

At that time, nothing ensures that Tchaïkovski will undertake the project, but the theological and philosophical conversations that it had with Balakirev started to convince it. Moreover, it is decided to pay homage to the leader of the Groupe of the Five.

October 31st (November 12th); only the scherzo respects the tonality that you had notified to me. The thing is very difficult of execution and requires an enormous orchestra, i.e. a great number of cords. As the tests are corrected, I will send them to you. I did myself the reduction for piano, but before engraving it, I much will play it and work it over again. Manfred is naturally dedicated to you.

In fact, the symphony is not completed yet completely, as Tchaïkovski explains it to his/her brother Modeste a few days afterwards.

Its feelings with regard to work do not cease evolving/moving, energy of the frank hostility to enthusiasm. Whereas it began the composition from Manfred , it had written with Sergueï Taneiev, one of its preferred pupils: After much of hesitation, I decided to write Manfred , since I realized that I will not have rest as long as I will not have held my promise given inconsiderately to Balakirev this summer. I do not know what will occur about it, but now, I do not cease being disappointed by myself. It is thousand times more pleasant to write without program. I feel like a charlatan deceiving his public: I not do not pay it with sounding money but with paper money without value.

Tchaïkovski joined disillusions of Claude Debussy on the Musique with program. Never he complained as much in connection with a work, but these complaints end up convincing it of the cogency of the realization. In July 1885, whereas it is yet only with the second movement, it writes in Emiliya Pavlovskaïa: The symphony appeared vast, serious, difficult, chronophage, sometimes exhausting. But an interior voice says to me that I do not work in vain and that this work will be one of my best symphonies.

With his cousin Anna Merkling, he writes in September: I complete in this moment the work which took all my summer to me. That cost me an unusual effort, because it was a very complex problem. Finally, I am completing it and gradually, as the fine word approaches, my spirit is done increasingly light and breathes more freely. I nervous and was depressed during all the summer: the fault returns from there on the sinister subject of this symphony, the Manfred of Byron.

The creation and the judgment of Tchaïkovski on Manfred

The symphony is created with Moscow the March 11th (March 26th).

Igor Markevitch, with the head of the Symphony orchestra of London, recorded work in 1963.

Evgueni Svetlanov recorded Manfred twice: in 1967 with the symphony orchestra of State of the USSR (Melodiya) and in 1992 with the symphony orchestra of State of Russia (Classics Canyon). In this second version, with the characteristic tempos, the chief takes a maximum of risks in the enfiévrés passages; the passage of final with the choral of organ is absent.

Lorin Maazel recorded work in 1972 with the Philharmonic orchestra of Vienna, and Riccardo Muti in 1981 with the head of the Orchestre Philharmonia.

Transcriptions and uses

Tchaïkovski and Aleksandra Hubert arranged this symphony for two Piano S (4 hands) between June (?) and November 1885.

the first and the fourth movement were used in a series of Japanese animation, Gankutsuō (2005).

Resources

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