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| Rosemary Brown (1960-2001), Music Medium |
The renowned David Toop once wrote, "Sound is a haunting, a ghost, a presence whose location is ambiguous and whose existence is transitory. The close listener is like a medium who draws out substance from that which is not entirely there." (¹) But what is meant by "there"? If the sound presented is incomplete, is there a ghostly presence that fills the void?
Let's consider Rosemary Brown, a British housewife who claimed to have been visited by a strange tall man with long, white hair when she was seven years old. Decades later, he revealed himself as the ghost of Franz Liszt, the once-famous composer. Liszt dictated a musical piece to her, and with some supernatural help, guided her hands on the piano. Not only Liszt, but also Bach, Grieg, Debussy, Schubert and Chopin lined up to dictate their unfinished musical business. Brown recorded these pieces and gained fame, at least in England, where citizens cherish their oddities and preserve them at all costs.
However, there is one riddle: how could Brown write and play these seemingly complex pieces of music with only minimal piano training during her childhood?
(¹) David Toop, "Sinister Resonance: The Mediumship of the Listener", Continuum 2010
by Doc Nachtstrom