Oddly enough I had the same thing happen to me today with a long query
(I did not count the characters but it was probably longer that yours)
and came up with this solution.

lcSQL = "SELECT Lv_rates_summary_schedc.audit_id, " + ;
"Lv_rates_summary_schedc.total AS admin_total, " + ;
etc

I have NO idea why one would work and the other did not but you should
give it a try. There must be some magic with the plus sign semicolon...

=============

>This is quite weird. I'm trying to store a SELECT statement to variable, and VFP 6 SP3 complains with "Command contains unrecognizable phrase/keyword" as soon as the length of my character string hits 256. I Tried the following on an NT4 SP4 and an NT4 SP5 workstation with the same result:
>
>

>lcSQL = "SELECT Lv_rates_summary_schedc.audit_id, Lv_rates_summary_schedc.total AS admin_total, 0000000000000000 AS rescare_total, 0000000000000000 AS otherres_total, 0000000000000000 AS retax_total FROM nis!lv_rates_summary_schedc WHERE UPPER(Lv_rates_summary_sche"
>

>This gives us the error message. Yet take the last character off the end("e") and it takes it just fine. Hackers Guide shed no light for me here, what am I doing wrong or is this a real live VFP glitch?