What is a warhorse?

When you hear the word warhorse what comes to mind?

This?

Maybe.....but in music, and particularly in classical music the word warhorse means something very different. According to The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000, one of the definitions is that of "a musical or dramatic work that has been performed so often that it has become widely familiar."

That's the basic definition. In my 16 years plus of programming and hosting classical music I most often hear this phrase used in a way that suggests a piece perceived as one or more of the following: old, trite, too familiar, boring, over played, etc. As you can see the term is generally not used in a complimentary fashion.

This afternoon I received a voice mail from a listener who stated that this morning's music seemed to contain a lot of "warhorses," specifically mentioning Leo Delibe's "Flower Duet" from Lakme.

This got me to thinking......hmmm......I wonder how many times I've programmed the "Flower Duet" this year? I thought this could bear some investigating so I accessed the part of our music software that tracks when each piece is played. What I found is interesting.

In 2007 I have played the "Flower Duet," including today, a total of three times. Three times! In slightly over five months! The actual dates in 2007 are January 3rd at 09:36am, March 5th @10:52am and today at 10:54am. Then I decided to check how many times the "Flower Duet" has been heard so far this year during Northwest Public Radio's afternoon and evening music. The total? Once. To be precise, on April 5th @12:17pm.

To summarize, The "Flower Duet" has been played during Northwest Public Radio's classical music programming a total of four times in 2007. Does that seem excessive to you? It doesn't to me. As tone (no pun intended) is not always easy to convey with the written word alone, let me assure you that I am in no way feeling defensive in regards to this listener's comment. It's a fair statement and a thought provoking one.

This is not the first time that someone has called, e-mailed or otherwise contacted me to state that I, or someone else, is playing a piece "too often" or "all of the time" and when I go back and look at the actual statistics they tend to come out very similar to what I discovered regarding the "Flower Duet."

So why, then, do we often perceive that something is heard often or even, depending upon our likes and dislikes, too much? Well, I think that it gets back to the definition posted above. I refer to the two final words of the definition, "widely familiar." Perhaps when we hear something that is familiar it stays with us longer? Could it be that a familiar piece of music, even if heard infrequently, is perceived as being heard more often than it is by the very fact that it is familiar?

I believe that we listen to classical music with different ears, or maybe a better way to phrase it is with different expectations. For instance, when a promoter of contemporary music calls me one of the first questions he or she asks is, "How many spins are you giving it?" In other words, how many times are you playing the song? And I can guarantee you that they are not asking how many spins a song has received this year. Oh no. They are asking how many spins per hour; at the very least per daypart (an average of three or four hours).

Classical music "songs" can be anywhere from under 1:00 to over an hour! Contemporary music tends to average in at about 4:00 minutes per song. Could that be another reason why classical music pieces can be perceived as being heard too much? If a song lasts 4:00 minutes maybe it can bear being heard every hour or so (although THAT could take up another post entirely!). Conversely, if a piece of music last 14 or 40 minutes is it perceived as being heard more often simply because it lasts longer each time that it is heard?

Well, I've raised some questions. What do you think?

If you're interested check out this Tom Manoff commentary about one of the most famous warhorses of all.