Rosemary Brown

Piano Album

Rosemary Brown (1916 - 2001) was a medium who sensationally claimed that dead composers were dictating new musical works to her. She created a small media sensation in the 1970s by claiming to produce works dictated to her by Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Johann Sebastian Bach, Rachmaninov, Franz Schubert, Edvard Grieg, Claude Debussy, Chopin, Schumann and Ludwig Beethoven. The opinions of musical critics were varied on the merit of Rosemary's transcriptions but most agreed that in their style they bore a great resemblance to the composers' published works.

Opinion is still divided about her claims and although there is scepticism, many musicians of note such as Richard Rodney Bennett, who said A lot of people can improvise, but you couldn't fake music like this without years of training. I couldn't have faked some of the Beethoven myself, have shown great interest.

In 1969 she was put to a test by the British Broadcasting Corporation, who set her at a piano where she waited for the spirit of Liszt to contact her. In due course she produced a piece that she said had been dictated to her by the dead composer. It proved too hard for her to play, so another pianist was engaged to play it. The piece was subsequently studied by a Liszt expert, who said it had definite similarities to Liszt's work.