RICHTER Sleep (8h version) | Deutsche Grammophon

The British composer Max Richter has written what is probably the longest piece of classical music ever recorded in one piece.

Sleep lasts eight hours – and is intended to lull the listener to sleep. ‘It’s an eight-hour lullaby,’ explains Richter.

The work is written for piano, strings, electronics and vocals and is Richter’s ‘manifesto for a slower pace of life’.

On the one hand, Sleep is an experiment with which Richter wants to find out ‘how the brain can be a living space for music when our consciousness is on holiday’.

During the composition, Richter consulted the renowned American neuroscientist David Eagleman to find out more about brain functions during sleep. Musically, the length of the work places it in the tradition of John Cage, Terry Riley or LaMonte Young; as a lullaby, the work looks back on a centuries-long history, starting with Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which were written for a sleepless count, to Gustav Mahler’s Nachtmusik 1 and 2 from the 7th Symphony, to name just a few prominent examples.