Happy New Year Everyone! Very nice Riley and Andreas! It's good to hear that there are chess players here on PS. When I first saw the title, I thought "Stalemate" was going to be about a boring marriage partner, or politics. Far from it! Indeed the composition is inward and contemplative, subdued, and indecisive in terms of resolution - as required for a stalemate. Now I can't wait to here how a future "Checkmate" will sound...

88man wrote:


Indeed, chess is a profound art, isn´t it? Yeah, a composition about "checkmate" would be a very interesting thing! (Don´t you feel inspired, Riley?) Happy New Year also to you and thanks for your comment!

@ Riley:
Unfortunately I´m quite ill at this time (bronchitis with high fever). I will send you the score as soon as I´m a bit fitter. Sorry for the delay!

@ David

Thanks for listening, and the idea of writing a "checkmate" is very intriguing. Maybe I could commission MAH for this composition..

@ Andreas

Hope you feel better, and still looking forward to learning and rehearsing your piece

Riley

When I studied 18th Century Counterpoint during my BM degree, I remember thinking that it was much like playing chess with the options that open and close with each decision made. For more "chess" themes for compositions, you could have an entire series based on ideas from same: perpetual check, capturing en passant, castling (king and queen side), as well as characters of the pieces themselves (Knight Rupert of Schumann comes to mind), Bishops, the lowly pawn, etc. For a 23rd century version (more modern tonal language) consider Tri-Dimensional chess of Star Trek fame with its movable battle boards and vertical capabilities (Da - Daaaaa - da -da-da-da-daaaaaaaaaaa) (angry Vulcan )

Musical_md wrote:


Indeed we would have to think of how to express Mr. Spock in music (he played that Tri-Dimensional chess, if I remember rightly)! But how would pure logic without any emotion sound?! Probably, that would be poor music, isn´t it? (May be the so called "serial music" would express this mind adequately! )
Seriously, to express the character or actions of certains chess figures could be a nice choice for composing "programme music" (german: Programmmusik), which (at least in german) is a term for music expressing non-musical matters. (F.ex. the theme "the noble Queen conquers the King" could be a good (and quite ambiguous) stuff, isn´t it?! )

Maybe like Webern!