Overview
Introduction
Manfred: Dramatic Poem with Music in Three Parts, op. 115: Overture in E-flat major
Manfred: Dramatic Poem with Music in Three Parts (Opus 115) [German: Manfred. Dramatisches Gedicht in drei Abtheitungen], is a work of incidental music by Robert Schumann. The work is based on the poem Manfred by Lord Byron and consists of an overture, an entracte, melodramas, and several solos and choruses.
Written primarily in 1848, it was first performed at the Gewandhaus concert at Leipzig on March 14, 1852. The most highly regarded piece in the work is the Manfred Overture. Composer Hugo Wolf wrote that the work "has brought the essence, the focal point of the drama to plastic expression with the simplest strokes." Music historian Peter Ostwald wrote that the Overture was written during a time when Schumann was facing "exquisite suffering" from "inner voices," or auditory hallucinations.
