Rosemary Brown (spiritualist) - Criticism

Criticism

Musical critics varied in their assessments of Brown's transcriptions. Some agreed that in their style they bore a great resemblance to the composers' published works. Forgeries and imitations had frequently been made in the past, but considerable musical knowledge is thought to be required for this.

Brown maintained that she had never had any musical training aside from a few piano lessons, though Harry Edwards says:

...a perusal of newspaper reports about Ms. Brown elicit contradictory information about her alleged lack of musical education. Originally she stated that she had had no musical training, later she was reported to have had only a couple of years of music lessons, and recently admitted to belonging to a musical household and being a competent musician and pianist.

It was suggested that she may have had advanced musical training but then forgotten it in a bad case of amnesia. This suggestion was, however, described as preposterous by the Browns' family doctor. Brown claimed her musical skill was such that she was unable to play many of the pieces dictated to her.

Brown was thoroughly investigated by both musicians and psychologists. None could find any way in which she could be cheating. Other explanations were put forward. One was that the composers had left behind them unknown, written music and that Brown was able to read these sheets, unwittingly using a form of telepathy. Another suggestion was that she picked up music from people around her by telepathy. However, she did not spend her time in the company of musicians who might have been composing works in the manner of Bach and Brahms.

Of the music itself, Richard Rodney Bennett, the British composer, 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."

Hephzibah Menuhin was also impressed. She insisted: "There is no question but that she is a very sincere woman. The music is absolutely in the style of these composers."

Alan Rich, music critic of New York magazine, took a more skeptical line. Having heard a privately issued record of Brown's piano pieces, Rich concluded that they were just sub-standard re-workings of some of their better-known compositions.

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 appear to her. In due course she produced a piece, supposedly dictated by Liszt. Brown claimed the piece was 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, but, as Harry Edwards wrote:

"Just because a composition is written and played in the style of a particular individual it doesn’t follow that they wrote it. Many entertainers, such as Liberace, Winifred Atwell and Victor Borge, often entertained audiences with modem songs rendered in the familiar style of the old maestros, and some teachers of music composition set exercises in the style of earlier composers."