CANCELLED: Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra

After writing several operas, Tchaikovsky turned his attention to the symphonic genre in the mid-1880s. Friends had already tried some 20 years earlier to motivate him to follow Berlioz’s example and write a »Manfred Symphony«, and when Tchaikovsky was in St. Petersburg for the first performance of »Eugene Onegin« in 1884, fellow composer Balakirev attempted to engender his interest in the idea once more. Now Tchaikovsky was ready for the project. The wave of Romantic-movement fascination with Lord Byron had abated in the meantime, but Byron’s Manfred is a fitting hero for any era. Faust and Don Juan are kindred spirits, and like them, Manfred also makes a deal with the Devil. The thirst for knowledge and understanding, extreme outsider status and above all weltschmerz drive Manfred into solitude and to an encounter with Ahriman, the Satanic destructive spirit of the Zoroastrian religion.