Chess Composers

Bernhard Kästner (20-03-1836 - 24-11-1889) German composer

Bernhard Kästner was a talented composer. Although his output is not quantitative, solvers will appreciate the tricky solutions of this 5-mover:


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Bruno Oswald Sommer (20-03-1881 - 19-11-1971) German composer



Bruno Oswald Sommer had a long and successful composing career. Many compositions have been selected in the FIDE Album. One can admire his skills in twomovers, threemovers or moremovers (see below). This last one poses an interesting question: which is the correct square for the wK: g5 or g6?


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Josef Moravec (20-03-1882 - 29-08-1969) Czech composer and International Master

Let's quote chessendings.com:
Emil Vlasak has produced an English version of his recent book of Moravec's work.
An anthology of his works in Czech was published and can be downloaded here.

Josef Moravec composed successfully in many genres. We selected a miniature, which became a selfmate classic:


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One of his most famous studies:


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Vitaly Halberstadt (Виталий Гальберштадт) (20-03-1903 - 18-10-1967) Ukrainian-French composer and International Judge


The endgame studies composer Vitaly Halberstadt published with Marcel Duchamp in 1932 "L'opposition et les cases conjuguées sont réconciliées". Halberstadt is also the author of "Curiosités tactiques des finales" (1954, 100 of his studies) and was the endgame columnist of many publications: Le Bulletin de la FFE, La Stratégie, le Bulletin Ouvrier des Echecs, L'Echiquier de France, Europe Echecs, Thèmes 64, etc.

(His date of death is October 18th, 1967 according to Vitaly Halberstadt's son Emmanuel. For reference: "Vitaly Halberstadt (20iii1903-18x1967)", Alain Pallier's article in EG 199, January 2015).

John Beasley collected some of Halberstadt's studies in BESN 40 Special issue, which can be downloaded here. As John puts it, "since this book is frequently cited but rarely seen, perhaps readers will welcome a brief account of [the] contents" of Halberstadt and Duchamp's book. Instead of quoting here one of Halberstadt's studies, we prefer to advise the reader to take the time to read John Beasley's excellent work and analysis.

Halberstadt is one of the composers you must also carefully study in moremovers. Only one K move will succeed in giving mate in 5, but which one?


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Mauno Kalervo Laisaari (20-03-1910 - 08-07-1994) Finnish composer

We don't have many details about Mauno Laisaari, except his 3.33 points in the FIDE Album. He is present in this selection with a nice endgame featuring an unexpected draw position:


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Leopold Mozeş (20-03-1910 - 26-03-1990) Romanian-Hungarian composer



Leopold Mozeş composed occasionally. We quote a single line miniature with nice wQ moves:


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Veikko Sergei Karhia (20-03-1916 - 26-02-1996) Finnish composer

Veikko Karhia best known problem, which reached in the FIDE Album, realizes a theme which always catches some unaware solvers in WCSC. The difficult key is understood only at the end!


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Wolfgang Bär (20-03-1949) German composer

Wolgang Bar is another specialist of the new German logical school of moremovers. If you can solve the following composition without looking at the solution, congratulations!


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Эдуард Эйлазян (20-03-1956) Ukrainian composer and FIDE Master(Eduard Eilazyan)



Eduard Eilazyan is a contemporary endgame composer, with elaborate complex analytical studies often based on mutual zugzwangs. A typical example displaying a difficult wK march is the following:



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