Friday, April 22, 2011

Musicological riddle

Wishes to all, (they go with the season), to live a better life!


A book by Werner Keym has been recently published titled [Eigenartige Schachprobleme], (in german, editions Nightrider Unlimited, 2010), which includes many of his problems (and of many other composers) with excellent comments.
The automatic translation of the title to english gives [Strange chess problems], but I would prefered [Chess problems of special art]. Really, I have found them very interesting.

From this book we will present the five-hundredth problem which contains a musicological interest, as the composer says.
It is an easy two-mover. It could also be positioned mirrored or upside-down, but the composer says that only this position is musicologically correct.

Can you explain why is he saying that?

(From this contest is excluded the Attica champion Nikos Mendrinos, who has recently received this book as a prize).

(Problem 493)
Werner Keym
"Eigenartige Schachprobleme", 2010,
#2.
(3 + 1)
[2R5/8/R7/7k/8/8/8/1K6]



Answer :
We write down the pieces of the problem : White Kb1, Ra6, Rc8. Black Kh5.
We note the squares of the pieces [b1 a6 c8 h5], and we write separately the letters of the files from the numbers of the rows [bach 1685] and we see the surname of the music composer Johann Sebastian Bach and the year of his birth.
If we somehow change the position on the chessboard, we do not take this piece of information.

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