Dvořák – Symphonische Dichtungen

Discogs

A king rides out in the countryside and meets a beautiful peasant girl and falls in love with her. So much that he wants to marry her. He invites her and her mother to his castle and the two are married. Immediately after the king leaves for some battle.

What the king doesn’t know is that the mother is actually an evil stepmother, and the girl is not the same girl but her identical looking daughter. The actual girl is killed and cut to pieces. To make sure she cannot be raised in some way, parts of her body are taken away: her hands, her feet and eyes.

The body is found by a magic wielding hermit, and he brings her back to life. To get the missing parts he trades them with the half sister come queen for a spinning wheel, a spindle and a distaff, all made of gold.

When the king returns home he wants her to show her spinning skills on the wheel. But while doing that, the wheel betrays her in a song. The king learns of what happened, and runs into the forest to find his real wife, alive and well. As punishment the horrible step mother and the step sister are killed in the same way as the beloved girl was.

Can you hear this story in the first fragment?

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