Cocktail Party Fact: “Pathetique” does NOT mean “pathetic,” but rather moody and dramatic.
Commitment Factor: About 45 -50 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1893). A four-movement symphony that ends, very unconventionally, with a slow movement expressing complete, helpless despair.
What to Listen For: There is a touch of cyclical form here. If you listen carefully, you might [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Igor Stravinsky was Serge Diaghilev’s fifth choice to compose the music for this ballet.
Commitment Factor: About 46 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period.
What to Listen For: In this piece, the first of his three great “Russian period” ballet scores, Stravinsky greatly expanded on the exotic harmonies and orchestration of his teacher, Rimsky-Korsakov. Even [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Igor Stravinsky composed this great ballet score during a break from his labors on Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring). Petrouchka started life as a concert piece for piano and orchestra, which can still be heard in the “Petrouchka’s Room” tableau.
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Early Modern [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Strauss isn’t the only composer who turned Don Quixote into music. In the Baroque period, Telemann produced a fifteen minute chamber suite that covers most of the material included in Strauss’ tone poem.
Commitment Factor: About one hou.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1897). Ten variations on a theme, scored for cello, violin, and [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Critics have never been completely happy with this piece — perhaps because Strauss portrayed it as a bunch of chattering woodwinds.
Commitment Factor: About one hour.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1898). One of Strauss’ most famous tone poems. Each section depicts scenes and characters from the life of a modern hero.
What to Listen [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Tapiola was the last major composition Jean Sibelius published before falling famously silent for the last thirty years of his life. For years afterward, there were rumors (partly encouraged by Sibelius) of new compositions including an eighth symphony, but nothing ever materialized.
Commitment Factor: About 20 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period tone poem [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Originally conceived as a traditional four-movement symphony, it was reworked by Jean Sibelius into its present three-movement form; but you can still hear the original scherzo in the finale of the first movement.
Commitment Factor: About 32 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period. After the Second, Sibelius’s most popular symphony.
What to Listen For: [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: In the months after undergoing surgery for a throat tumor, plagued with financial difficulties and filled with anxiety over his country’s political future, Jean Sibelius composed this famously gloomy symphony .
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Early Modern Period. A symphony in the traditional four movements.
What to Listen For: The [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Music Critic and Composer Virgil Thomson called this most popular of  Sibelius’ symphonies “hopelessly provincial.”
Commitment Factor: About 40 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic/Early Modern Period (1902). A four-movement symphony with the last two movements attached, taking a cue from Beethoven’s Fifth.
What to Listen For: The first movement is a very interesting piece in [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Maurice Ravel is said to have been influenced by George Gershwin in this piece. While that might be open to debate, Ravel’s affection for Gershwin’s music was undeniable: when Gershwin approached him for composition lessons, he refused, explaining that he didn’t want to risk turning a first-rate Gershwin into a second-rate Ravel.
Commitment [...]