# Recommended non-stage works over two hours in duration?



## MJongo (Aug 6, 2011)

What are the best, your favorites, or any you would like to recommend? Besides operas and ballets, I am sorely lacking in experience of music of such length. Here is what I have so far:

Bach - Mass in B Minor
Bach - St. John Passion
Bach - St. Matthew Passion
Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier Book I
Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
Handel - Messiah
Shostakovich - 24 Preludes and Fugues


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

Adding to the Oratorios you have already mentioned, I would name Mendelssohn's _Elijah_ and Elgar's _Dream of Gerontius_.

As for instrumental Music, Corelli's Op.6 Concerti Grossi must be two hours in length? Telemann's Tafelmusik also? (although I guess these might be best approached as simply a collection of smaller pieces).


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Schoenberg's oratorio Gurrelieder isn't quite two hours, but it's close. It's also one of the few popular successes of his life.

Instrumental works (aside from collections like the ones Winterreisender listed above) rarely go longer than two hours, but Messiaen's piano cycle Vingt Regards comes to mind.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Haydn's _Creation_. Prior to anything mentioned in two posts above.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

There are collections of lieder that go on for over 2 hours, Hugo Wolf's Goethe and Morike lieder for example.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MJongo said:


> What are the best, your favorites, or any you would like to recommend? Besides operas and ballets, I am sorely lacking in experience of music of such length. Here is what I have so far:
> 
> Bach - Mass in B Minor
> Bach - St. John Passion
> ...


I think you're quite incorrect to include either the Well-Tempered Clavier books or the Shostakovich set of 24 preludes and fugues as music meant to be performed or listened to in one sitting. This would be as mistaken as believing that Der Kunst der Fugue was meant to be taken in in one sitting, and do 'take them' like that is not necessary, nor vital to your musical education or experience.

Morton Feldman ~ For Philip Guston




There are other Feldman works running to the length in which you are interested.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I think you're quite incorrect to include...


Andras Schiff is now touring, performing both the Goldberg Variations and the Diabelli Variations (he takes all the repeats) in a single concert. Who says today's concert-goers don't have bellies of iron? And butts to match?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I thought Feldman would be the first guy mentioned. 

I'll go with Sciarrino's Sui poemi concentrici. It's a concert version of a film score, so I'm counting that as not for the stage.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

OMG, and of course Opus clavicembalisticum. 

I don't know if Godowsky's Studies on Chopin's Etudes counts as 'a' work, but if it does, it's over two hours as well.


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Havergal Brian - Symphony No 1 'Gothic' is almost two hours long


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2014)

Handel, Op. 6
Vivaldi, Op. 9 (it's close... the recording I have is 2hrs, 2min)
Corelli, Op. 6
Locatelli, Op. 3


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

science said:


> OMG, and of course Opus clavicembalisticum.


I had forgotten about that piece since Dodecaplex is no longer here to remind us of it every other day.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Feldman: For Philip Guston. 

My favourite piece of chamber music, absolutely beautiful AND it holds my attention for its entire duration.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

*La Monte Young* - _The Well-Tuned Piano_ - 5 hours
*Philip Glass* - _Music in Twelve Parts_ - 3 hours
*Kaikhosru Sorabji* - _Opus clavicembalisticum _- 5 hours, _Piano Sonata No. 5 (Opus archimagicum)_ - 6 hours, _Sequentia cyclica super "Dies irae" ex Missa pro defunctis_ - 7 hours, _Symphonic Variations for Piano_ - 9 hours
*Charles Koechlin* - _Les Chants de Nectaire_ - 3 hours
*Michael Finnissy* - _The History of Photography in Sound_ - 5.5 hours
*John Cage* - _ASLSP (As Slow As Possible)_ - 639 years (or an hour if you get the piano version
*Cornelius Cardew* - _The Great Learning_ - 4.5 hours
*R. Andrew Lee* - _November_ - 5 hours


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