What did they hear that I didn't?

I went to a Takacs String Quartet concert last night and was treated to the string quartet number 59, known as "The Rider" or the "The Horseman". A well-played, typically Haydn-esque quartet, As usual, the Takacs was flawless. What I got thinking about as they played was how did this get nicknamed "The Rider"? The program notes (by Andreas Anderswo) said ".. is immediately apparent after that pause that follows the unison introduction to the opening Allegro: the instruments enter one by one imitating each other with the first subject upon which a lilting subject follows". Now I ask, what does this have to do with riding horses or being a horseman? [Note: I tried to track down this Andeas Anderswo (Andrea Elsewhere???) at the University of Colorado but to no avail. However, someone in the know told me that Andreas Anderswo is the pen-name for none other than one of the local classical music critics, Wes Bloomster.]

As I sat listening, I wondered if, shortly after the premiere of this work, the composer, the performers, the patrons and some hangers-on didn't convene in a local tavern or palatial home and sit around and chat about the piece and the performance. They probably had port or something stronger and smoked their favorite tobacco and gabbed. At some point, someone probably mumbled something about "It sounded like horses" or "did you hear the loud horse's hooves rumble by during the first movement" and, wallah! a nickname was born.

I read the introduction by Anderswo and listened carefully to the opening and, for the life of me, could not get any perception of horses, riders, hooves, whatever in that opening movement. The name stuck with me and I kept wondering and, just perhaps, during the finale I might have heard something like restless horses. But what do I know?

Too often we hear on the FM radio pieces broadcast with their historical names? "Eroica", "The Prague", "The Surprise", etc, etc, etc. Sometimes they seem to mean something and sometimes not. I can understand where some of the names and tag-lines come from, but often not. It just causes me to wonder. and, in the case of "The Rider" ponder, how it all came to be named.