It must have been back in the seventies when I first heard the name Rosemary Brown. What a fascinating tale she had to tell! The great dead composers were communing with Rosemary from “beyond” and using her as a conduit to share their late compositions with the contemporary world. However, Rosemary Brown was not a trained professional musician, but she was gifted with spiritual vision. Some people believed what she was doing; others remained skeptical.
I wanted to know more about this amazing woman. As luck would have it, after one of my concerts a friend gifted me with her book, Unfinished Symphonies. I
quickly read it and remember thinking how blessed she was to have these great artists in her life and to get to know them personally. As a performing artist, we strive to go deeper into the music so we will understand what the composer is trying to say. Rosemary could actually speak to them and hear their voices directly.
Shortly after reading her book, I was in London for concerts and made an appearance on BBC Television. I was interviewed about my work as the first artist in residence for Deere & Co, an American manufacturer of farm equipment. I spoke about going into the factories and playing for the workers and introducing them to the music of my composer “friends:” Liszt, Chopin, Beethoven, etc. As a result of that interview “Pebble Mill at One,” a daily program on the BBC invited me to do a weekly music spot and to speak of a different composer “friend” every week. It was great fun and quite popular with the public, and I received lots of lovely letters from people who watched the show.
In one letter, I was asked if I had any interest in meeting Rosemary Brown. The lady who wrote to me was a friend of Rosemary’s then publisher Basil Ramsey. A meeting was arranged, and I was invited to have tea with Rosemary at her flat in Wimbledon.
My first meeting with Rosemary was unforgettable. I still remember her first words to me. “My friend Liszt has told me all about you— how lovely to meet you!” How’s that for an icebreaker! Then during our visit, it seemed as if she were talking on the phone and listening quietly to something being said to her by the other party. “My friend Rachmaninoff wants me to give you a message. You’re one of his favorite pianists, but he wants you to know that in the second movement of his Third Piano Concerto (I had been touring with the Third Concerto that season), there is an inner voice that you need to bring out in measure 12.” I must confess that after this statement, I started to have my doubts about what she was saying. I knew that Rosemary was not a professionally trained pianist and certainly was not capable of performing this concerto, but she made it clear that she was only delivering a message. As soon as I returned home, I grabbed my score to check out what she had said and sure enough found that hidden voice that I had missed in the thicket of notes that Rachmaninoff had written.
Over the years, we corresponded, and we would try to visit whenever I returned to London. Rosemary often spoke to me about the strain of her work and the time and effort it took to put these compositions down on paper. We discussed the different personalities of these composers and their unique style of communicating and how they would go about dictating their works note by note to her. She shared with me the difficulties she had endured and the abuse she had suffered from the music establishment who questioned her veracity and expressed doubts about the work she was doing. We would discuss her recent compositions, and then she would send me home with some of her music. On a few occasions she was able to attend some of my performances, always escorted by her young friend Adrian.
We never spoke about our personal lives outside of music. I knew that Rosemary was a widow with two children, and I do remember meeting her daughter at her flat on one occasion. In retrospect, I now realize that we were both widowed around the same age, and we both lost our husbands after the same number of years of being together— a fact that we did not know we shared at the time of our friendship.
I think of Rosemary so often, and I cherish her friendship. I am now better able to understand the spiritual work she was doing and the importance of uncovering the message that these great composers need to share. As a performing pianist, I am striving to go deeper, to go under the notes, and go beyond the pianism and technical bravura. The journey is about discovering the depth of the composers’ spirit so that I can connect their music directly to the souls of the listeners. Rosemary has inspired me to venture into the unknown without fear and to have the faith and the courage to trust my intuition so that I can hear the voices of the composers and share their stories.
Thank you, Rosemary, for your guidance, your faith, and your boldness. You never lost sight of your mission in life. Always in our thoughts, your spirit continues to inspire.