Чайковскийдің «Манфред» симфониясы

Symphony by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Manfred is a "Symphony in Four Scenes" in B minor by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, his Opus 58, but unnumbered. It was written between May and September 1885 to a program based upon the 1817 poem of the same name by Byron, coming after the composer's Fourth Symphony and before his Fifth. Like the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet, Tchaikovsky wrote Manfred at the behest of the nationalist composer Mily Balakirev, who provided him the program, which had a long history. Critic Vladimir Stasov had written it and sent it to Balakirev in 1868 hoping the latter would write such a symphony. But Balakirev had felt unable to carry out the project and instead had at first forwarded the program to French composer Hector Berlioz, whose programmatic works impressed him. Berlioz in turn had declined the project claiming old age and ill health and returned to the program, after which it had remained with Balakirev until he reestablished contact with Tchaikovsky in the early 1880s. Manfred is the only programmatic symphonic work by Tchaikovsky in more than one movement and is larger than any of his numbered symphonies both in length and instrumentation. He initially considered the work one of his best, and in a typical reversal of opinion later considered destroying all but the opening movement. The symphony was greeted with mixed reviews, some finding much to laud in it, and others feeling that its programmatic aspects only weakened it. Manfred remained rarely performed for many years, due to its length and complexity. It has been recorded with increasing frequency but is still seldom heard in the concert hall.

In the first ten years after graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1865, Tchaikovsky completed three symphonies. After that he started five more symphony projects, four of which led to a completed symphony premiered during the composer's lifetime. During his second and final trip to Russia in the winter of 1867–68, the French composer Hector Berlioz conducted his program symphony Harold en Italie. The work caused a considerable stir. Its subject was very much to the tastes of its audiences, whose enthusiasm for the works of Lord Byron had not exhausted itself as it had begun to do in Europe. Berlioz's use of a four movement structure for writing program music intrigued many Russian musicians. One immediate consequence was Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov's four movement suite Antar, written in 1868. Around the same time as Rimsky Korsakov composed Antar, critic Vladimir Stasov wrote a scenario for a sequel to Harold, this time based on Byron's poem Manfred and sent it to the nationalist composer Mily Balakirev. Balakirev did not feel attracted to the idea, so he forwarded the program to Berlioz, only hinting it was not entirely his own. A little over a year later, Berlioz had died, and by 1872 Balakirev was embroiled in a personal crisis that silenced him creatively. Tchaikovsky's entrance into this story was strictly by circumstance. He finished his final revision of his fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet in 1880, a work on which he and Balakirev had worked tirelessly together a decade earlier, and which was dedicated to Balakirev. Since Balakirev had dropped away from the music scene in the intervening time, Tchaikovsky asked the publisher Bessel to send a copy of the printed score to Balakirev, thinking he would have a current address. He presented Stasov's detailed plan, explaining it was not in his character to engage in such composition. As he explained in a letter to Tchaikovsky in October 1882, "this magnificent subject is unsuitable, it doesn't harmonise with my inner frame of mind". When Tchaikovsky showed polite interest, Balakirev sent a copy of Stasov's program, which he had amended with suggested key signatures for each movement and representative works which Tchaikovsky had already written to give some idea of what Balakirev had in mind. Balakirev also gave warning to avoid "vulgarities in the manner of German fanfares and Jägermusik," plus instructions about the layout of the flute and percussion parts. So did Tchaikovsky's rereading Manfred for himself while tending to his friend Iosif Kotek in Davos, Switzerland, nestled in the same Alps in which the poem was set. Once he returned home, Tchaikovsky revised the draft Balakirev had made from Stasov's programme and began sketching the first movement. Tchaikovsky may have found a subject in Manfred for which he could comfortably compose. However, there was a difference between placing a personal program into a symphony and writing such a work in a literary program. He wrote to his friend and former student Sergei Taneyev, "Composing a program symphony, I have the sensation of being a charlatan and cheating the public; I am paying them not hard cash but rubbishy bits of paper money." However, he later wrote to Emilia Pavlovskaya, "The symphony has turned out to be huge, serious, difficult, absorbing all my time, sometimes to utter exhaustion; but an inner voice tells me that my labor is not in vain and that this work will perhaps be the best of my symphonic works." Instead of following Balakirev's instructions slavishly, Tchaikovsky wrote it in his own style. Initially, he considered it to be one of his best compositions, but wanted a few years later to destroy the score, though that intention was never carried out. The Manfred Symphony was first performed in Moscow on 23 March 1886, with Max Erdmannsdörfer as conductor. It is dedicated to Balakirev.

Manfred wanders in the Alps. Weary of the fatal question of existence, tormented by hopeless longings and the memory of past crimes, he suffers cruel spiritual pangs. He has plunged into occult sciences and commands the mighty powers of darkness, but neither they nor anything in this world can give him with the forgetfulness to which alone he vainly aspires. The memory of the lost Astarte, once passionately loved, gnaws his heart and there is neither limit nor end to Manfred's despair. The musical embodiment of this program note is presented in five extensive musical slabs spaced out by four silences. A brooding first theme, briefly unharmonized, builds to music both spacious and monolithic. A second theme leads to a second musical slab, this time pushing forward with the loudest climax Tchaikovsky ever wrote. The music in the third slab seems calmer, while the fourth slab marks the appearance of Astarte. The fifth slab culminates in a frantic climax and a series of abrupt, final chords.

The Alpine fairy appears before Manfred in the rainbow from the spray of a waterfall.

A picture of the bare, simple, free life of the mountain folk.