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How is tutti played?
Bring everyone back in, most characteristically after solo writing. In an orchestral part, one player may step forward for a solo and the rest rejoin at tutti; in a concerto, tutti labels the full-orchestra passages set against the soloist's episodes, though context may not require literally every instrument to sound. The term can also restore a section after reduced scoring, call the whole choir, or mean the full organ with all stops drawn. When the issue is recombining divided lines rather than restoring player complement, unis. or non div. is more precise.
How does tutti sound?
The texture opens to its full breadth and weight — the massed sound of the entire body of players, a marked surge in volume and density after the intimacy of a solo.
In context
Tutti means 'all' or 'together' and is conventionally opposed to solo, especially in the alternation between soloist and orchestra that helps define concerto form. Stone uses tutti to restore a full section after fewer players and separately uses unis. to recombine divided strings; Grove likewise shows that tutti's exact scope is contextual in concerto practice. The complete word is an instruction in its own right, not an abbreviation.