Cocktail Party Fact: Mendelssohn was never completely satisfied with the structure of this work, and died before he had the chance to revise it. The music became ultra-famous in the bicycle film “Breaking Away.”
Commitment Factor: About 30 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1833). This four-movement symphony offers one very unique feature: it ends with a final [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Martinu hesitated about calling this work a symphony, and originally planned to use no less than three pianos in the orchestra. The “symphony” in the title stayed, but the pianos went entirely, making it the only Martinu symphony without one.
Commitment Factor: About 30 minutes
Vital Statistics: Modern Period (1951). This is a three-movement [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: If you remember the “Marlboro Man” and the music from the film “The Magnificent Seven,” check out the very end of this symphony–you’ll be surprised by what you hear.
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes
Vital Statistics: Modern Period (1942). A four-movement symphony with the scherzo placed second, rather than third, as is traditional.
What [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Probably the greatest symphony ever composed in Jamaica–Queens.
Commitment Factor: About 40 minutes
Vital Statistics: Modern Period (1942). A four-movement symphony with the scherzo (joke) placed second, rather than third as is traditional. There is a touch of cyclical form, in that the first movement introduction returns at the end of the slow movement, [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Nicknamed “Symphony of a Thousand” this is the largest symphony ever written [that actually gets played regularly]. You can actually do it with about 450 people if necessary.
Commitment Factor: 75 - 80 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Modern Period (1906). Composed in two large movements, the first is a setting of the Latin hymn [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: This is one of the very few symphonies that ends tragically in a minor key (unhappy endings are actually very rare), but the struggle to get there is so powerfully fun to listen to that it has also become one of Mahler’s most popular works in recent times. It’s also the first [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The better you know Mahler, the more you will realize that his entire life’s work is like one large piece of music. The symphonies share themes, rhythms, and structural ideas. The very opening of this symphony is a trumpet fanfare that first appears in the first movement of the Fourth Symphony.
Commitment Factor: [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Despite his reputation for using vast orchestras, this is the only symphony composed in the latter half of the nineteenth century or the first decades of the 20th that does not include trombones.
Commitment Factor: About 55 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1900). A four-movement symphony in very unconventional form–the finale is a [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: This is the longest symphony ever written that actually gets played regularly.
Commitment Factor: 90 - 100 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1898). This symphony contains six movements, the fourth of which is an alto solo setting words by Nietzsche, while the fifth is a song that includes choruses of women and children. [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: This titanic work was, without a doubt, the biggest piece of music ever written when it was composed. It’s still in the top few.
Commitment Factor: 75 - 90 minutes (Mahler allows great freedom of tempo, so actual timings can vary considerably.)
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1894). This vast symphony has five movements–a [...]