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 has 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 felt unable to carry out the project and instead at first forwarded the program to French composer Hector Berlioz, whose programmatic works impressed him. Berlioz in turn declined the project claiming old age and ill health and returned 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. Berlioz declined, claiming old age and ill health. He returned the program to Balakirev, who kept it. 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. Whether the publisher delayed in fulfilling this request or Balakirev did not reply, no news was forthcoming as to whether Balakirev had received the score, so Tchaikovsky wrote to Balakirev in September 1881. Balakirev wrote back, thanking Tchaikovsky profusely for the score. In the same letter, Balakirev suggested another project—"the programme for another symphony ... which you could handle superbly." 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.

Tchaikovsky declined the project at first. He claimed the subject left him cold and seemed too close to Berlioz's work for him to manage anything but a piece that would lack inspiration and originality. Balakirev persisted. "You must, of course, make an effort," he exhorted, "take a more self-critical approach, don't hurry things." His importunity finally changed Tchaikovsky's mind—after two years of effort. 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."