Classical Music & Chess

Thanks for the icecream ChessPlayin Dude...

It was good to see this thread. Since I started playing chess more here at chess.com I have wasted a lot of time, true, but inspiration has flowed more freely, and I hope some opponents will forgive my occasional slowness as I might occasionally pause to adjust some music if I have a Sibelius file open in a window.

A few years ago, in my Aria How I Love My Smartphone, I included a reference to chess.com in the lyrics. At rehearsal, a fellow composer who also had a work in the same concert, got chatting about my piece and to my delight it turned out he also played chess on this website. Of course we got a match going, unfortunately he timed out after a few weeks and we have lost touch.

There are very clear analogies between chess and music for a composer, in particular in chord progressions - you have to keep a very careful eye on horizontal, lateral and diagonal motion, according to mathematical rules, and avoid redundancy.

It was good especially to read about Schoenberg's version of chess (one of my heroes).

No mention yet of chess problem composition, so aptly named and closest of all, perhaps, to music composition.

I will likely, in due course, write something more closely connected to chess.

Also the match between Prokofiev and Ravel, and the Duchamp/Cocteauc film, both on my profile, may be of interest to some here. 

The intolerably sweaty, bravura performance of Gergiev conducting the Vienna Phil. in Stravinsky's The Firebird (1910 version). An unforgettable experience in sensual tonal color, thoughtful orchestration, and high-energy, sometimes raucous playing from the orchestra; equivalent to an adventurous chess game that has many layers of beauty...

And in my dreams I see myself on a wolf's back
Riding along a forest path
To do battle with a sorcerer-tsar
In that land where a princess sits under lock and key,
Pining behind massive walls.
There gardens surround a palace all of glass;
There Firebirds sing by night
And peck at golden fruit.

Yakov Polonsky - excerpt from "A Winter's Journey" (Zimniy put, 1844)

 Wonderful stuff there David .Great poetry in the music ..Gergiev is a great conductor..Also a great Opera conductor ...What a pity he is a Putin lover but who cares if he makes this wonderful  music..

Di Stefano singing Mascagni at his top in 1956,,,this is as good as it gets...i don t know any better..

Since I grew up listening to the Callas-Di Stefano-Gobbi version of Tosca, I got to hear a good bit of Di Stefano! Agreed! Beautiful voice!

2016 voices Anna Netrebko and Jonas Kaufman...splendid voices o soave fanciulla Puccini La Boheme

I love music and I'm doing exams as well.Piano grade 1 and Violin grade 2 and Theory also grade 2.Im 11 years

sublime from La Boheme Puccini

"Nie sollst du mich befragen, noch Wissens Sorge tragen, woher ich kam der Fahrt..." aus der Oper 'Lohengrin' von Richard Wagner. Jonas Kaufmann in der Rolle des Lohengrin mit Anette Dasch als Elsa von Brabant. - Mailänder Scala - Musikalische Leitung: Daniel Barenboim.

Blues music is so closely related to chess that they even had a record label!

This is a great forum on this topic! I just wanted to share this relevant video of the great Sergei Prokofiev's relationship with Chess!

Thank you very much for sharing. I read Prokofiev's Diaries (three volumes). The first volume especially has much about chess in St Petersburg. He was also a close friend of Capablanca. I myself have written a piece based on the Dragon Variation pawn structure.