Two fairy-tale compositions by Carl Reinecke that could hardly be more different are heard on this CD: Aschenbrödel (Cinderella - based on the story by the Brothers Grimm) is scored for two solo voices, vocal ensemble, speaker, and piano, while Das Märchen vom Schweinhirten (The Tale of the Swineherd – based on the fairy-tale by Hans Christian Andersen) manages entirely without vocal parts: the story is told exclusively in the form of music for piano four hands. These circumstances mean that each composition has its own fundamentally different musical style. The vocal music is of romantic character; here the song form lends its shape to the individual musical numbers. By contrast, the piano music of the Schweinhirt evokes the nineteenth-century middle-class tradition of arrangements for piano four hands of symphonic works by the classical composers, whose symphonies and overtures could be performed in the home. In Aschenbrödel the listener gains an insight into the inner life of the main character, and the music is romantic through and through.