Music, Friendship & Chess

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In the Soviet Union, one of the 20th century's greatest violinists and one of its greatest composers were close friends: 
David Oistrakh and Sergei Prokofiev. 

Listen here to Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 performed by David Oistrakh:


Although Oistrakh did not premiere the concerto, he did work on the piece with the composer and recorded it in 1954, a year after Prokofiev's death.

As well as being legendary musicians, both Oistrakh and Prokofiev were passionate chess players. 

The official announcement of the match between Sergei Prokofiev and David Oistrakh
Image source

 In fact, on the 9th of November 1937, they played each other in a prestigious match at the Master of Art Club in Moscow, overseen by the two chess giants at the time: Vladimir Alatortsev and Ilya Kan.

Six Interesting Facts About Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
The 1937 Prokofiev - Oistrakh Match
Image source

Prokofiev was rather more outstanding as a chess player, to the extent that in 1909 he drew with Emanuel Lasker - world chess champion for an astonishing 27 years. Prokofiev also managed to beat the Cuban chess player José Raúl Capablanca, despite losing in his first two attempts. Even the most seasoned professionals rarely achieved this feat. 

Documentary David Oistrakh, Artist of the People? - A ...
David Oistrakh (1908 - 1974)
Image source

lexetmusica: June 2014
Sergei Prokofiev (23 April 1891 - 5 March 1953)
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Tragically, Prokofiev died from a massive brain haemorrhage aged 61 on 5 March 1953, exactly 55 minutes before Stalin. Due to official state mourning, only 44 people were able to attend Prokofiev's funeral service at which David Oistrakh played two movements of the composer's First Violin Sonata. This is made all the more painful, since in 1948, the Central Committee of the Communist Party denounced, amongst others, Prokofiev and Shostakovich for 'formalism': music that had no immediate function and did not extol the virtues of the Soviet regime. Yet, even the day of Prokofiev's death and of his funeral were overshadowed by the very man responsible for his denouncement, which compromised the remaining years of Prokofiev's life - financially, physically and mentally. 

This blog is intended to be educational and to share knowledge about music. Daily Hit of Music does not claim to own anything contained in this post and declares its sources openly. 
The following sources were used for this blog post: 'The Great Composers' by Jeremy Nicholas, en.chessbase.com, cmuse.org, Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
Image sources can be found in the image captions. 
Recordings can be found on YouTube by clicking the 'DHM YouTube Playlist' links.

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