Well, maybe "hero" isn't precisely the right word for Manfred. Lord Byron's dramatic poem has also been described as "Faust without the devil", and that is perhaps closer to the mark. Indeed, the spirit of Goethe's Faust looms in the background of the entire piece, and obviously influenced its shape, although Byron's work is much more than a mere copy.
The cause of Manfred's despair is not the wish for more knowledge, but his guilt for some wrong he committed against his ideal beloved, Astarte -- a wrong which remains unmentioned. Instantly one's mind jumps to the affair Byron was accused of having with his half-sister, and it becomes quite plain that Byron's Manfred is probably autobiographical.
This concept matters a great deal, because it almost certainly explains why this material was so compelling to the closeted homosexual, Tchaikovsky. The emotion of despair was never very far away for him throughout his life, and is plainly a driving force in more than a few of his major works. His programmatic symphony based on Manfred was composed in between his Fourth and fifth numbered symphonies, in 1885, when he was at the peak of his powers.
Tchaikovsky first liked this programmatic symphony, but later felt revulsion and wanted to destroy the score -- except for the first movement, which he still valued highly. While the programme states that this movement depicts Manfred wandering in the Alps, there's no question that it really takes us deep inside Manfred's despairing soul -- and just as much inside the despair in Tchaikovsky's own soul. This is one of the most powerful and truthful character portraits ever painted in music.
The main theme which is announced right at the outset in bare unharmonized melodic form aptly symbolizes Manfred's internal torment. It keeps struggling to rise upwards but each phrase starts lower than the one before it so the net motion is downwards. Later on it is joined by a pendant theme which rises and falls only to return to the note on which it started. Both melodies will recur in each movement as mottoes, tying the whole work together. These melodies, weighty with meaning and emotion, can sound weary and wandering when played in the low range of the instruments. Played quietly, and higher up, they sound wistful. And at the end of the movement they build up to a grim climax of despair like nothing else in music, framed by wildly skirling woodwinds and capped by an agonized scream from the trumpets.
Tchaikovsky was a little unfair to himself in disparaging the second movement. It depicts the Fairy of the Alps, appearing to Manfred in a rainbow cast by the sun in the sparkling spray of a slender Alpine waterfall. Tchaikovsky's music, light, sparkling, dancing, evokes this scene to absolute perfection. It's every bit as effective as the fairy scherzos of Mendelssohn and Berlioz, and that is saying a great deal! In the middle of the scene, the thought of the beloved Astarte enters the picture and so does her theme, originally stated in the quiet middle section of the first movement.
The third movement, a peasant festival, does strike me as a bit weaker at the knees -- like the country scene of Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique watered down -- but even here there are moments of rare beauty. The themes of Manfred and Astarte recur here too, just as the idee fixe does in Berlioz.
The finale, a witches' sabbath in the underground caverns of the demonic Arimanes, treads quite different ground from the corresponding movement in Berlioz, so the similarity of theme is forgivable. In the midst of the revels, the spirit of Astarte appears (with her unmistakable theme) to tell Manfred that his death comes on the morrow. The orgiastic dance which keeps erupting has energy enough to keep the movement flying along until the sudden return of Manfred's theme, full force, tells us that his death is drawing near. This is worked up into another massive climax similar to, but differently harmonized, from the one in the first movement.
The ending is the weakest link of the whole scheme. The climax is suddenly interrupted by a harmonium (an organ may also be used) playing a chorale theme. This unfolds in three phrases decorated by strings. In the fourth, the whole orchestra joins in and then gradually unwinds down to a quiet conclusion in a major key. It seems that Tchaikovsky understood the ending to mean that Manfred finally reached peace with himself and redemption at the moment of his death.
That's not the way Byron planned it! Manfred defies any and all authority that crosses his path throughout the poem. At the end, when a priest comes to summon him to confess, he heroically defies both heaven and hell. His final words are: "Old man! Tis not so difficult to die."
So perhaps, what Tchaikovsky was really hoping was that he would achieve redemption, and given his own despair over what he considered his sinful nature, that would be perfectly understandable.
This rarity has achieved a few more recordings in recent years, but remains largely unknown in the concert hall. The recording I have captures all the considerable range of the music -- the subtle and gentle moments as effectively as the dogged and powerful climaxes. It's a DGG CD from 1994 with the Russian National Orchestra conducted by Mikhail Pletnev, and he does the work full justice.
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