Classical music can be as much about stamina as artistry. For every short and sweet tune, there are scores of magnificent, gigantic works. From works that last an hour to centuries, here are some of the longest masterpieces in classical music.
Violin Concerto: Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61
Length: about 55 minutes
Written for Fritz Kreisler, Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor is among the longest violin concertos in the repertoire.
Piano Concerto: Busoni’s Piano Concerto in C Major
Length: about 70 minutes
Clocking in at over an hour, Busoni’s concerto demands technical excellence and elite stamina from its player. Composed in 1904, the work is based on Aladdin and features a men’s chorus in the final movement.
Ballet: Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty
Length: originally, nearly 4 hours
Tchaikovsky’s three ballets each hold important places in the canon. But his longest — and the longest commonly performed ballet — is Sleeping Beauty. Originally nearly 4 hours long, today’s companies usually present an abridged version, “just” 2.5 hours long.
String Quartet: Feldman’s String Quartet No. 2
Length: up to 5 hours
This chamber work is a marathon — in fact, it’s one continuous movement. Because of its unique demands, it’s seldom performed, and only features in a handful of recordings.
Symphony: Mahler’s Symphony No. 3
Length: about 100 minutes
There are longer symphonies, but this is the longest performed with any regularity. It holds six movements, and features an alto soloist, a women’s choir, and a boys’ choir, plus the posthorn, an instrument rarely heard in other works. The symphony’s text pulls from Nietzsche and German folk tales.
Opera: Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Length: about 5 hours
Richard Wagner wrote some mighty long music in his career. And when put in succession, his Ring Cycle can take about 15 hours to perform (though it’s seldom performed all at once). His longest single title is also the longest opera in standard repertoire. Die Meistersinger can run about 5 hours, and tells the comedic story of love and singing.
Piece: Organ2/ASLSP, ‘As Slow as Possible’
Length: up to 639 years
Yes, you read that right. John Cage’s almost unfathomably vast work takes up nearly ⅔ of a millennium to perform. Or that’s what one church — the Halberstadt Cathedral in Germany — has decided. The work’s titular instruction, As Slow as Possible, is up to interpretation, but the cathedral decided to space out the piece to coincide with the anniversary of its organ. The performance began in 2001 and will end in 2640; the next note change will happen in August 2026. Other performances can span from 20 minutes to 25 hours.
