Max Richter Performs Sleep Live for Eight Hours, Sets Guinness World Record on BBC Radio 3

Photo by Mike Terry

British composer Max Richter recently released Sleep, “an eight-hour lullaby” that is one of the longest single pieces in the history of classical music. As previously announced, Richter performed the entire composition live for the first time and gave the audience beds, instead of seats, encouraging them to sleep through it. BBC Radio 3 broadcast the event, which took place at the Reading Room at London’s Wellcome Center. The performance set Guinness World Records for longest broadcast of a single piece of music and longest live broadcast of a single piece of music. Listen to all eight hours here. See photos from the event (taken by Mike Terry) and hear audience members reflect on the performance below.

Richter’s Sleep performance took place from midnight to 8 a.m. on September 27. He played piano, keyboards, and electronics, and was joined by Grace Davidson (soprano), Natalia Bonner and Steve Morris (violins), Reiad Chibah (viola), and Ian Burdge and Chris Worsey (cellos).

Richter consulted with neuroscientist David Eagleman while working on the piece to learn about how the brain functions during sleep. “Sleeping is one of the most important things we all do,” he said. “We spend a third of our lives asleep and it’s always been one of my favourite things, ever since I was a child. … For me, Sleep is an attempt to see how that space when your conscious mind is on holiday can be a place for music to live.”