I forgot -- there's another composer who ought to be mentioned here. Ennio Morricone never beat a world champion, but he did once hold Spassky to a draw. Sadly, I can't find the game posted anywhere online -- anyone have it?
Also, according to this post, Prokofiev beat not one world champion but two. In addition to his win over Capablanca, he evidently beat Lasker in a simul, and he had wins over Rubinstein and Tartakower too. Sadly, none of those games seem to survive.
I forgot -- there's another composer who ought to be mentioned here. Ennio Morricone never beat a world champion, but he did once hold Spassky to a draw. Sadly, I can't find the game posted anywhere online -- anyone have it?
Also, according to this post, Prokofiev beat not one world champion but two. In addition to his win over Capablanca, he evidently beat Lasker in a simul, and he had wins over Rubinstein and Tartakower too. Sadly, none of those games seem to survive.
Maybe it's just a fish tale then. People lied back then too. lol
Could be, though at least the Tartakower win turns out to be legit. Apparently the endgame has indeed survived, published by Tartakower himself. You can see it reproduced here.
The last line of the article mentioned above indicates that a game survives between Prokofiev and *Edward* Lasker, without saying who won. So the story could be a misunderstanding of which Lasker. Still, just above that the article reproduces a photo of Prokofiev found in a German-language biography of Emanuel Lasker. If anyone can get ahold of that, I'd be curious what it says and why the photo is there.
Okay, whay composer once beat a (future) world champion?
Musical composer or chess problem composer? If it's chess problems, I'll guess George Koltanowsky.
Nope, the other kind.
I deleted my comment after noticing that you already posted the answer. lol I definitely wouldn't have gotten it right anyway. I've never even heard of Prokofiev.