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: One of the most famous pieces of music in the repertoire, the music makes a brief appearance in Stanley Kubrick’s film “A Clockwork Orange,” along with music by Beethoven and Rossini.
Commitment Factor: About 40 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1889). A four-movement “symphonic suite,” meaning that the piece lacks the dramatic structure and [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Probably the most famous violin concerto ever written–you’ll recognize it immediately.
Commitment Factor: About 25 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1844). This concerto employs the usual, three-movement form (fast-slow-fast), but with a couple of unique features: first, the violin begins immediately, without the usual long orchestral introduction. This innovation set the pattern for virtually [...]

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: Mendelssohn also wrote an “Italian” Symphony, and one famous story has a contemporary listener hearing this work, and remarking on how it reminded him of sunny Italy. So much for nicknames!
Commitment Factor: About 37 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1842). A traditional, four-movement symphony with a big, first movement introduction, and a long [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The only classical concerto used during the talent competition of the Miss America pageant–in a three-minute arrangement for piano solo. The contestant didn’t win.
Commitment Factor: 25 - 30 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1868). A three-movement concerto in post-classical form (in other words, the soloist dominates throughout, right from the beginning).
What to Listen [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: Grieg referred to one of the most famous numbers, “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” as “ultra-Norwegian cow dung.” But it’s great cow dung. “Morning,” for all of its Scandinavian associations, actually depicts dawn on the Sahara desert.
Commitment Factor: Anywhere from 12 minutes, for one of the two standard suites, to [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: No musical tradition was more anemic than that of the French conservatories in the second half of the nineteenth century (that’s why there are virtually no great French symphonies until this one). Franck’s formal and orchestral innovations caused a huge controversy, but at the same time he single-handedly created the model for [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The version most often heard is actually an expansion of the original orchestration, which was for a very restrained ensemble (a string section without violins, except for a single solo)–only recently has the original once again become popular.
Commitment Factor: About 35 - 40 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1892). As the title indicates, [...]

Cocktail Party Fact: The “Enigma” is a tune that supposedly fits when played with the main theme, but is never stated. Elgar himself never revealed the secret, and while there has been much speculation since, there is no consensus as to the true answer.
Commitment Factor: About 35 minutes
Vital Statistics: Romantic Period (1899). Each variation of [...]