Zlatý kolovrat
B197, Op. 109 · “The Golden Spinning Wheel”
Long besotted with the work of Czech poet/folklorist Karel Jaromír Erben, Dvořák composed several pieces inspired by his writings. In 1896 he began a tetralogy of symphonic poems adapted from Erben’s collection Kytice. The Golden Spinning Wheel is perhaps the most elaborate and nuanced of these. In Erben’s tale, a king is lovestruck by the young beauty Dornička and asks her stepmother to deliver the girl to him. The evil stepmother brutally murders Dornička and brings her own daughter instead, and they marry. Eventually the golden spinning wheel reveals the truth, the mother and daughter are killed and the king marries the revived Dornička. Dvořák’s orchestration echoes the details of the story more closely than any of his other Kytice adaptations. Running nearly half an hour, it encompasses a wide range of dynamics, moods, motifs and tonal shifts, from the sprightly gallop of brass echoing the king’s arrival at the beginning through the muted evocations of murkier developments to the cymbal-crashing jubilation of the ending.
