Largest Classical Piano Sonata Ever

When we are doing something that truly interests us, at some point there grows a wish to achieve some height in our favorite endeavor. There are different ways of estimation of this ‘height’, but since 1955 there has been published a book a listing in which can shout about your uniqueness – Guinness Book of World Records. The fun thing is that there is even a listing about the book itself there, as one with the biggest circulation.

But since we have a music blog here, why not have a look at the music records of Guinness, particularly those in classical music. Here are some of them:

• The most popular classical music album: “The Three Tenors In Concert”, recorded by Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti – 13 mln copies.
• The biggest concert audience: 800 00 thousand people, at the free concert by the NY Philharmonic in the Central Park.
• The most fruitful conductor: Richard Rodgers, with over 800 classical music recordings.
• The lowest and the highest note: both in works of Mozart, in opera “Die Entführung aus dem Serail” and aria “Popolo di Tessaglia” respectively. 
• The oldest classical music: Chinese music, with a 3 000+ years history. 
• The most outstanding classical music teenager: Charlotte Church, double platinum album at the age of 12.

There are people who put many years of hard work in their pieces of music in order to create a most unique masterpiece in the end. One of such examples is Piano sonata No.5 by Maurice Verheul which had been composed during 9 years (!) and is likely to get in the Guinness Book of World Records as the “largest classical sonata ever”.

Would you dedicate so many years to a music piece?