A musical term meaning soft, notated in the score as a single p, with pp meaning pianissimo, or very soft. The name of the instrument called the piano is derived from the markings piano and forte, meaning that the instrument could play both softly and loudly, unlike its predecessor the harpsichord.

Cocktail Party Fact: This might be the most psychoanalyzed composition in all of music. Just for starters, Franz Schubert composed parts of it in hospital after learning he had syphillis (whether contracted from a male or female partner no one knows). The doomed hero of the Wilhelm Muller poems is often seen as a surrogate [...]

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: The first set of eight dances (1878) made so much money for Dvorak’s publisher that he nagged the composer into composing the second set in 1886. But the version was not the one for orchestra that we generally hear today: these dances were originally composed for piano (four hands), to be played [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The traditional numbering has it backwards: No. 2 was composed before No. 1.
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes each
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1830). Both concertos are traditional, three-movement works in supposedly classical form (with lengthy first movements in which the solo is introduced by a long orchestral prelude).
What to Listen For: In reality, [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The third movement of this trio and the fifth movement of the German Requiem were both written in response to the death of Brahms’ mother.
Commitment Factor: About 25 minutes
Vital Statistics: Late Romantic Period (1865). The trio is probably the only important piece written for this combination of instruments. Its four movements include [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: There’s a really cool transcription, for solo piano, of the first movement of this concerto by the French Romantic composer Alkan. It’s unbelievably difficult, since the soloist plays both the solo and the orchestral parts at the same time. The cadenza (the part near the end of the first movement where the [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven’s friend and staunchest supporter among the nobility, was also a very decent composer in his own right.
Commitment Factor: About 37 minutes
Vital Statistics: Classical Period (1811). Composed for piano, violin and cello in four movements. Beethoven’s Trios are the greatest written for this combination of instruments, alongside those of Schubert, [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Used by Stanley Kubrick in “The Shining”–check out the third movement.
Commitment Factor: About 25 - 30 minutes
Vital Statistics: Modern Period (Nationalist School–note the influence of Hungarian folk music, especially in the finale) (1936). This masterpiece is effectively a four movement symphony for a very unusual distribution of instruments: two string orchestras placed [...]

Active Years: 1861-1908 (born 1844)
Position: Russian Composer
Career Highlights: Scheherezade
Career Totals: Seventeen operas, thirteen choral works, four symphonies, over twenty other orchestral works, five string quartets, eight other chamber works, twenty-five piano pieces, over eighty songs.
Scouting Report: Rimsky-Korsakov is another composer who is primarily known for one pieces — the Scheherezade Suite. He was a self-taught [...]