Cocktail Party Fact: The slow movement has, at various times, been compared to the story of Orpheus placating the Furies, David calming the wrath of Saul, and lots of other similar situations.
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes
Vital Statistics: Classical Period (1807). Three movements, but with a novelty for a classical concerto: the piano has a brief [...]

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: The “tone clusters” in the second movement of this concerto, in which the flat of the hand is used to play an entire octave of notes at once, are a device Bela Bartok learned from the music of the American composer Henry Cowell.
Commitment Factor: About 27 minutes.
Vital Statistics: Modern Period. Not quite [...]