Chess and music at the Château de Villandry

Do chess and music go together? Well, perhaps not at the same time, but many lovers of the royal game don’t mind listening to a good piece of music as well. Last weekend a special happening took place in the Castle of Villandry (close to Tours, about 250 km south-west of Paris). And when we say music, chess and France, we say… Philidor.

And yes, it was the French chess player and composer André-François Danican Philidor who was remembered with this special event. His chess genius was remembered with a little rapid tournament for the “Trophée de Villandry”, in which the legendary Viktor Korchnoi, Alexandra Kosteniuk, Almira Skripchenko and Laurent Fressinet played. The people present were also reminded of Philidor’s musical talents with a concert by the young Russian pianist Natacha Kudriskaya, who gave an interpretation of Philidor’s musical repertoire as well as that of other musicians from his era.

Click on the image for a bigger version.

The chess results:

Semi-finals:

Kosteniuk  - Skripchenko 1,5-0,5
Fressinet  - Korchnoi    2,5-1,5

Final:

Fressinet  - Kosteniuk     3-1

Both the Fressinet-Korchnoi match and the final was decided with 3 minutes + 2 seconds increment blitz games. One game Fressinet-Kosteniuk lasted no less than 237 moves! It was probably Fressinet being courteous to allow Kosteniuk more than fifty moves to beat him with bishop and rook against rook! Here’s the decisive (and attractive) Fressinet-Korchnoi game:

Thanks to our friends Robert Fontaine and Gérard Demuydt of Europe-Echecs we can also present a video of this game:

Download all the games of the Trophée de Villandry here. More videos here.