Several features make Manfred unique among Tchaikovsky's works. It is the only programmatic work he wrote in more than one movement. The first two movements do not recapitulate their middle sections. The entire work is not only long, playing up to and sometimes over an hour, but it is designed with the utmost spaciousness in mind. There is nothing else in Tchaikovsky's works that captures the long-breathed deliberation of the third movement or the practically verbatim recapitulation of the widely variegated opening section of the second movement following the equally huge middle section. At least one critic has suggested that, in its heroic but perfectly judged dimensions, Manfred resembles Richard Strauss's later tone poem Ein Heldenleben.Wood, 91.
