Musical Warhorses

[schweitzeralan]

Of the many fine threads in this forum several deal with classical music that is not played enough, or not available via recordings.  Indeed, many posters have brought to my attention composers with whom, or with works I am totally unfamiliar.  Then, of course, there is the exception in that there are always those  works that are played or repeated either in concerts or on radio broadcasts ad infinitum.  These are the traditional works that are probably undoubtedly great achievements but are tirelessly repeated.  For whom, may I ask? Again, it's an involved subject; here is a partial list of works that preclude my going to concerts or my turning on the "classical music station."  Granted, I admit, there are exceptions.  At least there are Cd's plus the TV musical station that allow listener access to familiar and non familiar compositions. My list of warhorses include:

Beethoven's 5th
Mozart's 40th
Ravel's "Bolero"
Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet"
Anything by Rossini
Tchaikovsky's 2nd Piano Concerto (not the 3rd, to be sure; never heard the 1st.)
VW's "Greensleeves"
Pachelbel's "Canon in D"
Chopin's "Polonaise"
Anything by Vivaldi
Wagnerian overtures (not the total operas)
Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance"
Khachaturian "Sabre Dance" (NOT the whole Gayenah Suite)

There are others to be sure. Yet we can put up with it; we have access to so much through other sources which provide a great variety of fine classical works..

[hornteacher]

I'm not even sure I'd call some of those pieces warhorses.  To me Canon in D and Bolero are more like "classical pop".  I take your point though.  Some "overplayed" pieces I still love and will love eternally (Beethoven 5th, New World Symphony, Mendelssohn VC, Beethoven Emperor, etc), some I could do without ever hearing again (Blue Danube, 1812, Bolero, etc).  I don't object to overplay though as much as cheapening the integrity of the music (either by only playing parts of the work or using it for commercials, ringtones, etc).

[Dana]

Then, of course, there is the exception in that there are always those  works that are played or repeated either in concerts or on radio broadcasts ad infinitum.  These are the traditional works that are probably undoubtedly great achievements but are tirelessly repeated.  For whom, may I ask?

      We play this traditional rep over and over again because someone is always listening for the first time. If Wagner and Shostakovich could both be inspired to careers as composers because of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, so can someone else.

      And there's also the matter of interpretation; because music is a many-faceted, highly personal spectacle, and not simply a display on a spectrum of good music vs. bad music, each new performance by a new director or soloist could reveal some new truth about the music. This is especially true about music because books and paintings are created, and then they are able to exist on their own. Music exists within time as much as in space, and must be re-realized every time we want to observe it. This means that it can be continually new in a way that no other artform allows.

[DavidW]

Beethoven's 5th
Mozart's 40th

Yes

Ravel's "Bolero"
Tchaikovsky's "Romeo and Juliet"

No

Anything by Rossini

No, only the overtures are played often

Tchaikovsky's 2nd Piano Concerto (not the 3rd, to be sure; never heard the 1st.)

What!?  The 1st is a warhorse the 2nd is really not, I have no idea where you got the impression that the 2nd is played often.

VW's "Greensleeves"

Yes

Pachelbel's "Canon in D"

It has become traditional wedding music, so it being played alot at weddings does not make a concert warhorse and in fact it's not.

Chopin's "Polonaise"

Yes

Anything by Vivaldi

No!  Only the four seasons, and his choral music is severely neglected in concerts and radio.

Wagnerian overtures (not the total operas)

Yes

Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance"

It has become traditional graduation music, and it's not a concert warhorse (most people haven't even heard the whole thing).

[jochanaan]

I think part of whether we get tired of "warhorses" is how well they're played.  Two bad examples are the aforementioned Pachelbel Canon (and how many people remember that it's part of the "Canon and Gigue"?!) and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March #1.  Mostly we hear the Taco Bell Canon (yes, musicians actually call it that) in syrupy arrangements that have little to do with the multifaceted masterpiece Johann Pachelbel actually wrote, and of course "Pomp and Circumstance" gets victimized by high-school bands at pathetically slow tempos. On the other hand, most of us can remember at least one really great performance of Beethoven's Fifth or Mozart's 40th, the full works, by a major orchestra.   Even the '70s "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy is at least lots of fun, although I still prefer the original.

[Fëanor]

How about ...

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Personally I find the work very enjoyable and listen fairly often. A big part of the reason might be the sonically superb version from Reference Recordings, below.

I also have Reiner /Chicago but don't enjoy it as much.

[Sef]

I think part of whether we get tired of "warhorses" is how well they're played.  Two bad examples are the aforementioned Pachelbel Canon (and how many people remember that it's part of the "Canon and Gigue"?!) and Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March #1.

I can relate to this one in particular. During a violin recital I went to a few years ago, a mature lady who had recently picked up the instrument again after many years played the Canon in D. Never before had I heard something so hideously unpractised and performed that I could not keep my emotions in check. If you have ever heard uncontrolled giggling on the radio (of "The batsman's Holding the bowler's Willey" variety) then you know what I mean. I had to excuse myself and leave the hall. Now I can't listen to that piece ever again. It has completely spoiled it for me.

[schweitzeralan]

Yes

No

No, only the overtures are played often

What!?  The 1st is a warhorse the 2nd is really not, I have no idea where you got the impression that the 2nd is played often.

Yes

It has become traditional wedding music, so it being played alot at weddings does not make a concert warhorse and in fact it's not.

Yes

No!  Only the four seasons, and his choral music is severely neglected in concerts and radio.

Yes

It has become traditional graduation music, and it's not a concert warhorse (most people haven't even heard the whole thing).

I must have been mistaken about T's Concerto.  Perhaps it is the 1st and not the 2nd. I should have known.  I was thinking of this because I recently heard Tchaikovsky's 3rd. Concerto.  Much impressed. I fully acknowledge your opinions.  At least there are a few responses to the thread.  Just some thoughts.  In actuality I'm not all that familiar with much of Vivaldi.  Probably a recaction to much of his music which I don't particularly like. C'est ma chose.

[schweitzeralan]

How about ...

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Personally I find the work very enjoyable and listen fairly often. A big part of the reason might be the sonically superb version from Reference Recordings, below.

I also have Reiner /Chicago but don't enjoy it as much.

Yup!

[jochanaan]

How about ...

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Personally I find the work very enjoyable and listen fairly often. A big part of the reason might be the sonically superb version from Reference Recordings, below.

You'll get no argument from me!  You'd think that such a simplistic, repetitious piece would tire rather quickly, but it doesn't.  Part of the fun in this one is anticipating exactly how the principal players will enliven it!

I also have Reiner /Chicago but don't enjoy it as much.

Can you give a reason or two why not?  I've become conditioned to expect nothing less than perfection and enthrallment from Reiner and the Chicagoans in "Living Stereo"...

[Fëanor]

You'll get no argument from me!  You'd think that such a simplistic, repetitious piece would tire rather quickly, but it doesn't.  Part of the fun in this one is anticipating exactly how the principal players will enliven it!Can you give a reason or two why not?  I've become conditioned to expect nothing less than perfection and enthrallment from Reiner and the Chicagoans in "Living Stereo"...

I don't mean to imply any criticism of Reiner.  But it's like I said, I like the sound of Serebrier; (I'm a bit of an audiphile I'm afraid, and not much of a performance connoisseur).  Notwithstanding the the Living Stereo sound is good, the Reference Recordings is better.

I remembered to that I also have the Dutoit /MSO version; I've only listened a couple of times but my impression at this point is that isn't up to the Dutoit standard somehow.

[Xenophanes]

I don't know how often they are actually played in concert, but these are certainly warhorses in the recorded repertoire:

Mussorgsky-Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition
Stravinsky, Firebird Suite

This I know is performed often, especially around Christmas:

Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker

Other composers besides Rossini and Wagner, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms (yeah, I know, overtures to nothing), Suppe, Auber, and Glinka wrote some warhorse overtures.

Brahms, Hungarian Dances

Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsodies, the 6 orchestrated, of course.

I suppose Puccini's La Boheme is an operatic warhorse.

No one can convince me that Handel's Messiah is not performed often--it's a great warhorse.

There's always Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.  Some of them are performed now and then and one absolutely must have a recording of them.

Beethoven, Moonlight, Pathetique and Appassionata Sonatas

Mozart, Clarinet Quintet

[Fëanor]

What were we not thinking?  Has obody's mentioned Gustav Holst' The Planets

I have just a couple of versions on CD, below.  I've got William Steinberg /Boston and Metha /LA on LP but I can't tell you when I last listen to those.

[schweitzeralan]

I don't know how often they are actually played in concert, but these are certainly warhorses in the recorded repertoire:

Mussorgsky-Ravel, Pictures at an Exhibition
Stravinsky, Firebird Suite

This I know is performed often, especially around Christmas:

Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker

Other composers besides Rossini and Wagner, such as Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms (yeah, I know, overtures to nothing), Suppe, Auber, and Glinka wrote some warhorse overtures.

Brahms, Hungarian Dances

Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsodies, the 6 orchestrated, of course.

I suppose Puccini's La Boheme is an operatic warhorse.

No one can convince me that Handel's Messiah is not performed often--it's a great warhorse.

There's always Bach's Brandenburg Concertos.  Some of them are performed now and then and one absolutely must have a recording of them.

Beethoven, Moonlight, Pathetique and Appassionata Sonatas

Mozart, Clarinet Quintet

Right on!

[karlhenning]

We play this traditional rep over and over again because someone is always listening for the first time.

But, is that not equally serviceable as a reason to play a great deal of (leave us say) the great non-over-exposed literature?

[DavidW]

But, is that not equally serviceable as a reason to play a great deal of (leave us say) the great non-over-exposed literature?

Every concert I've been too plays something known to draw in the crowd, and then something unknown to expose a captive audience to something different.  But it's not equally serviceable to play non-exposed literature, because it's not necessary great music.  If you live in NYC or Vienna (to name a couple) you can find concerts of all sorts of music, but orchestras in smaller towns are serving alot of people that don't even usually listen to classical music, so why not expose them to the masterpieces on the limited schedule that you have? 

Classical music being bound to honor the past, can never do true justice to the present.  At least we have cds and mp3s to listen to all of the music that we want, even if it's underexposed in concert.

[karlhenning]

Every concert I've been too plays something known to draw in the crowd, and then something unknown to expose a captive audience to something different.  But it's not equally serviceable to play non-exposed literature, because it's not necessary great music.  If you live in NYC or Vienna (to name a couple) you can find concerts of all sorts of music, but orchestras in smaller towns are serving alot of people that don't even usually listen to classical music, so why not expose them to the masterpieces on the limited schedule that you have? 

Classical music being bound to honor the past, can never do true justice to the present.  At least we have cds and mp3s to listen to all of the music that we want, even if it's underexposed in concert.

That's all true, David; though I did not necessarily have in view new non-exposed music, but music which has attained the status of literature (so to speak) but which many orchestras which favor safe-as-milk programming consistently overlook.

[DavidW]

That's all true, David; though I did not necessarily have in view new non-exposed music, but music which has attained the status of literature (so to speak) but which many orchestras which favor safe-as-milk programming consistently overlook.

Well I'm putting the new music in the view because with pop movies and music you find that 99% is junk, but everybody wants it anyway (well they don't want the junk, they just have an insatiable lust for new media), as long as it's new.  But people don't want to do the same with classical!?  The radio and cd stores should be packed with the latest.  Interestingly enough I think this forum shows the same attitude that everyone else shows because I remember in the past recordings of year X would garner little interest and few posts because everyone was buried in the archives.  And I'm totally guilt of that too, and being guilty of it I still don't understand why.

[Coopmv]

Yeah, I stopped buying warhorses a while back, particularly if the recording is by a me-too ensemble ...

[knight66]

Brahms, Hungarian Dances

Liszt, Hungarian Rhapsodies

These were on a list. I know them and have a recording of each. But I have never, ever so much as heard one in the concert hall. Do the radio stations bombard people with them? BBCRadio 3 does not seem to, but it is not a commercial station.

If by warhorses we mean symphonies or concertos by well known composers, then we would now have to add some Mahler to the list.

Warhorses are usually popular works because of their quality, often they are masterworks. I tend to give them a long rest. A couple of days ago I heard a snatch of the slow movement of the Greig Piano Concerto. Instantly, I recalled what a lovely work it is. I must listen again to it, years since I did. After a rest, the old warhorses gallop back to us.

Mike