Reviews of the various recordings including ORIGINAL Concept ALBUM, CHESS PIECES, BROADWAY CAST , IN CONCERT , THE COMPLETE DANISH TOUR 2001 , and Chess IN SWEDISH VERSIONS

ANDERSSON, RICE & ULVAEUS-CHESS -OCTOBER 1984 Available on 2CD set worldwide (ALSO REFERRED TO AS LONDON CAST,ORIGINAL CAST ,OR CONCEPT album)

"Each game of Chess means there is one less variation left to be played"-Tim Rice on "Chess"

 A work in progress...So said the composers said ominously in the liner notes in '84....CHESS is a musical about two chess champions, one Russian , one American and
the people and politics that surround them. CHESS is a melodic ,daring, witty , ambitious musical .CHESS was an opportunity for Bjorn and Benny to flex their musical muscles in new way.
Unlike ABBA,-they could bring in any vocalist, any choir, any orchestra
they wanted to make the record. The musical is varied mishmash of
rock, pop, orchestral music, opera, Rodgers & Hammerstein, disco, and so
forth. Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus wrote
the music, Tim Rice wrote the lyrics (with some minor help from Björn). The
idea for Chess came from Tim Rice but the lyrics and the music were melded
together in a joint effort, The music on occasion drives the storyline
through it's subtle repeated themes. Although some thought that Tim Rice's lyrical approach was overly clever, it certainly was refreshing to hear ABBAesque
melodies coupled with clever sardonic lyricism. .CHESS is a great record that so far has turned out to be only a so-so stage musical...

ABOUT THE CAST
The record's three main leads all give great performances. As the Russian,
Swedish pop singer Tommy Körberg proves to be a major find vocally ,Briton
Murray Head is cynically effective as The American ,but it is British
singer Elaine Paige's who ultimately ties it all together. Elaine plays
Florence Vassey the character who links the two chess players together .
Elaine had starred in the London versions of EVITA and CATS ,Elaine was
also lyricist Tim Rice's girlfriend around the time of CHESS. Murray Head
was best known for his work as Judas in the original album-of Jesus CHRIST
SUPerstar.. Körberg had been recording artist in Sweden since the 1970's.
Paige, Körberg and Head were also the leads in the London stage version of
CHESS in 1986.The other main cast members were Bjorn Skifs as the Aribiter,
Barbara Dickson as Svetlana, and the late Dennis Quilley as Molokov.

ABOUT THE ALBUM
CHESS was recorded at Polar Studios in Stockholm (vocals and rock combo) and
in London(orchestra and choir) by Michael B. Tretow. Benny Andersson and
ABBA's backing band plays on many of the tracks but are supplemented by the
London Symphony Orchestra and the Ambrosian Singers (who are also British).
Anders Eljas arranged the orchestrations and conducted the LSO. CHESS was
released originally as a 2 album set in late 1984. More material was
recorded but didn't fit on the dominent vinyl record format of the
time...Most of the work on the songs was sdone in 1983 and the work on the recording in 1984.
This work is where it we start to recognize Benny's talent as a orchestral
and a dramatic composer. Benny's melodies come to the fore in a way that
they couldn't always do in ABBA songs. The melodies were always there of
course, but in the ABBA recordings other elements would compete for
attention.Chess, unlike B&B's later Kristina or for that matter most other musicals,
is fairly unique in the way that rock sensibilities are mixed seamlessly
with musical & opera forms .

Two songs from CHESS were hit singles. The duet between Elaine Paige &
Barbara
Dickson called" I Know Him So Well" became B&B's tenth number one song in
Great Britain. The song was widely covered ...Indeed, it became the only B&B
song to be covered by the likes of American divas like Barbra Streisand and
Whitney Houston.
Murray Head 's "One Night in Bangkok" was a surprising top three hit in
America , and a big seller other places as well.. The song features Murray
Head, but the record also stars Anders Glenmark on backing vocals
and Björn J:son Lindh on flute. A extended remix 12 inch version of
"Bangkok" was released in America.
Attempts to have hits with, "The Arbiter", "Nobody's Side and "Anthem" did
not succeed . "Nobody's Side and "Anthem" may have been the best tracks on
the album. "Nobody's Side" couples a typically
acerbic Rice lyric with one of the most dramatic arrangements B&B ever
unleashed on unsuspecting listeners. "Anthem" was a unused ABBA medley that
become one of B&B's most powerful songs when performed by Tommy Korberg.
The remaining tracks are preety much without exception all
listenable,intelligent songs.

VARIOUS VERSIONS
A work in progress...So said the composers in the liner notes in
'84...Despite the quality of It's score Chess would never be a total success
on the stage.The flawed book for the play remained a major if a somewhat,
interesting problem in every future attempt to stage the play .The rock
music in the musical on stage also proved to be more problematic since
middle-aged critics & showgoers of the 1980's often found the rock elements
to be too harsh for their sensitive ears. So, CHESS Has been recycled and
retried many a time ...THE MUSICAL WAS ORIGINALLY RECORDED AS A CONCEPT
ALBUM, AND WAS WIDELY PROMOTED BEFORE IT WAS ACTUALLY BROUGHT TO It's STAGE
premiere in London..The songs were performed in concerts throughout Europe
in late 1984 and the play finally made it to London's West End in May 1986.
There would not be an official stage recording per se from the London cast
but there would be a Broadway cast album .A one album condensed version was
released in Europe called Chess Pieces. Chess arrived on Broadway in a
highly altered version in APRIL 1988. It was revived for a unsuccessful
Off-Broadway version in 1992.
In 1994 a version of the the Concert recordings came out in Sweden .
Finally it was brought to Sweden in all new Swedish language version in
2002. (SEE BELOW).

1983 CHESS DEMOS AND OTHER STUFF

During 1983/84 B&B recorded numerous demos for the CHESS project. These recordings remain unreleased. One song recorded was "Every Good Man" which features Agnetha singing dummy lyrics to what would become the melody of "Heaven Help Heart' proving ,not surprisingly, that Agnetha would have had no problem playing the Florence role in Chess. ""Every Good Man" is sometimes mistaken as a ABBA demo .

Two highly dfferent variations of the 1982 unreleased ABBA song "Just Like That" were recorded by Elaine Paige and Tommy Körberg. B&B attempted to find a use for the "Just Like That' melody in CHESS but made no progress in doing so. In 2002 they tried again, and came up with "Glöm miG om du kan " for the CHESS IN SWEDISH" project.The song is based on the "Just Like That" melody.

It is also interesting to note that 3 of the CHESS songs had their melodic roots in unreleased ABBA tracks." I Know Him So Well" has bits from"I Am a A", "Anthem"comes from "Nationalsang" Finally, part of "Someone Else's Story" comes from a song called "Lady Bird". Some of the CHESS DEMOS have been bootleged..

OTHER STUFF-THE EUROPEAN CONCERT SERIES.

In late October 1984/Early November 1984 a series of half a dozen "CHESS" concerts were given in European cities-London, Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam , and Stockholm itself. The concerts largely featured the cast heard on the concept album.except, Stockholm where Karin Glenmark pinch hit magically For Barbara Dickson at one point during the show when Barbara missed her cue....These concerts featured a full orchestra and choir and thus were expensive to produce...

Chess Moves (1985) Internationally released VHS video. Out of print..

Official videos of five key songs from the original Chess album.

It all Runs only 25 minutes but the videos are good. Features Elaine Paige and Murray Head, but not Tonny korborg.. Videos directed by David G. Hillier, Ken Warwick

One Night In Bangkok/ Nobody's Side /The aribiter/ I know Him So well / Pity the child

Andersson, Rice and Ulvaeus-CHESS PIECES 1986 released on CD European CD

Released in Europe, but not in the USA, this is a one album abridgement of the original studio concept album. It has 13 of the songs.The versions
of "You and I",and Merano used here are edits. A new alternate version of
"The Arbiter" was used here The extended version of the "The Arbiter"
included new lyrics referring to the mid-eighties Chess match in which World
Champion Kasporov lost a match because of an arbiter's questionable
decisions. This album has a white cover as opposed to the black of the original album.

Track listing for Chess PIECES

Merano/ The Arbiter/ Nobody's Side, Chess, Mountain Duet/ Embassy Lament/ Anthem/ One night in Bangkok/ Heaven help my heart/ I know him so well/ Pity the child/ You and I / The story of Chess