It seems like, at least in classical music, the piano is either center stage, like in a concerto, or not part of the orchestra — it’s never part of the accompaniment.
It certainly seems like it can play soft… it’s in the name of the instrument, and it doesn’t seem like a shrill sound, so why is it that the piano is never (rarely?) an accompaniment instrument.
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Except in almost [every non-Piano instrumental Sonata](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Alf-Tkzagx8) ever written? Trios and such also have the Piano as a “non-featured” instrument equal in importance to the rest. If you’re meaning full-orchestra specifically, it does play that role in some modern music, but you’re right it’s not SUPER common.
The name of the instrument was originally “fortepiano”, which translates as “loud-soft”. The “soft” attribute is relative. A concert grand piano is actually pretty loud. Even with the lid closed and the soft pedal pressed down, it can still drown out a vocal boys’ choir with 15 members performing in an acoustically amplifying church (I know this from experience). The first pianos were smaller affairs and not optimized for volume. Only in the 1800s did pianos become robust and powerful, due in part to using cast-iron frames, which allowed for multiple high-tension strings per note.
Because it is so big, generally it is a solo instrument in an orchestra, not an accompanying instrument. A harp and harpsichord are sort of the same, usually a solo instrument in an orchestra because the orchestra drowns it out. In the case of a piano, the piano can compete with the orchestra’s volume, so it could be an accompanying instrument, but isn’t.
I am guessing that the reason is a piano can hold its own as a center-stage instrument because it is polyphonic, capable of playing multiple notes simultaneously (and so are harps, harpsichords, and organs). Other instruments in an orchestra are monophonic; they can play only one note at a time. A composer writing for piano can make a composition that can be managed by just the piano. Writing for the rest of the orchestra requires writing for multiple separate instruments that play only one note at a time.
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