Sound waves

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32525, 8 February 1971, Page 4

Sound waves

One of the stranger stories | of our times is the subject of a 8.8. C. documentary called “Mrs Brown and the Great Composers” on CHTV3's programme next Friday night. It examines the phenomenon of Mrs Rosemary Brown, who writes music ostensibly dictated to her by the great composers, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin and Debussy. Her claims are investigated and discussed by a group of musical experts pianists Hepzibah Menuhin and Denis Matthews, composer Richard Rodney Bennett and by Mrs Brown herself. Doubts are cast on certain aspects of her work but in general she is supported. Some of the reputable guests seem to substantiate Mrs Brown’s claim, and the concept of spiritual visitation in general. Mrs Brown, almost untrained in music, has produced so far some 400 compositions, described as fulllength coherent pieces of music bearing a peculiar similarity to the styles of the composers presumed to have inspired them. Mrs Brown says the music comes to her while she is in a state of trance.