Well, for sheer spectacle of performance, how about the fugue that Bach improvised on May 7, 1747, from a very difficult theme given him by Frederick the Great?
Did he write it down ofterwards [sic]?
Amazed nobody has mentioned Snorabji yet.
Surely he wrote something about 3 months long of incredible quality.
Dorothy Parker never quite said that if all the fugues of Sorabji were laid end to end she would not be at all surprised
some people might get that one
By what?
Your joke is too esoteric.
Sorabji's fugues > Bach's fugues
For whom?(!)...
I take it that you are not familiar with the original quote, then?...
Indeed I'm not, oh, great master.
I wouldn't expect you to get it (and it's not that much of a joke, actually) unless you happened to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time some quarter century or more ago and experienced some gravely distended performances for yourself, so I'd not give it another moment's thought; suffice it to say that someone else whom I know and whose judgement I would usually trust attended such an event and said afterwards that he had, during his concert going career, queued up to get into quite a few concerts but that this had been the first and only one that he'd queued up to get out of.
It was hard to know what to say or how best to say it, really. Sorabji was still alive then and I had arranged with him that I would take this pianist to him the following day to play to him - until I'd heard said pianist, that is. Sorabji would have been horrified had I proceeded with this visit and, with no small embarassment and due apology, I accordingly cancelled it at less than a day's notice.In an effort to remain as discreet as possible, I told the pianist that his representations of this and two other Sorabji pieces were entirely at odds with the composer's intentions and that, in all conscience, I could not therefore expect to accompany him to the composer so that he could play to him. Only at this point did I discover that this pianist was already scheduled to perform some Sorabji in public and I had to explain to him that he would not be able to do so with the composer's sanction. No one but the pianist could then have cancelled this event - and it was not cancelled. Unsurprisingly, I did not attend it myself. One distinguished and knowledgeable critic who did so told me afterwards that, although he had often queued to get into concerts, this had been the first that he'd queued to get out of.
Well, I do recognize the story to which you are referring:
Anyway, to return to the "point" (such as it was), who really cares about the total duration of all of Sorabji's fugues? Not me, for sure!
20 hours seems like a reasonable estimate.
Topic: Greatest fugue or fugato? 