Music and Chess

Probably the most famous chess player/musician is Philidor who excelled in both fields. Other Chess Players who were also top class musicians include Taimanov and Smyslov.

Below are facts relating to Musicians and Chess

• Prokofiev played against Lasker (in simultaneous), probably in San Petersburg, on 2nd of March of 1909. It was a draw!
• Prokofiev also played Capablanca and in the Summer of 1951 - Botvinnik in Nikolina Gora. "He played a very vigorous, forthright game" wrote Botvinnik.
• In 1937 Prokofiev played in in Moskau a Match against the violinist David Oistrakh.
• Dmitri Schostakowitsch played with Prokofiev, Oistrakh and the conductor Kiril Kondr shin.
• John Cage played, among others, against Marcel Duchamp.
• Edison Denisow (-1996) played chess.
• Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976), russian cellist, sponsored two important chess cups.
• Composer Ernest Irving "said that the ability to read a full score helped a player to play blindfold, since instrumental complexities resemble chess combinations".
• Adolf Brodsky (1821-1929) was a chess-player and leader of the Halle Orchestra and later Principal of Manchester Collegue of Music.
• Rudolf Heinrich Willmers (1821-78) played piano (in concerts) and composed chess problems.
• Rudolph Reti, the brother of Richard, was a musician.
• Other Musicians who played chess
  Yehudi Menuhin, Ray Charles (?), John Lennon (?), Richard Strauss (?), Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Giuseppe Verdi (?), Giaccomo Rossini (?), Robert Schumann, Aram Katchaturian, the conductor K¡ril Kondr shin,. the pianist Paul Badura-Skoda.