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Works of deaf composer written by lecturer
Ghostwriter is a part-time music lecturer who claims Mamoru Samuragochi is actually not deaf
Mr Takashi Niigaki is said to have received more than 7 million yen for writing songs for Mamoru Samuragochi.
Tokyo - The revelation that works thought to have been composed by a self-described deaf composer were actually written by someone else continues to reverberate in classical music circles.
The turmoil involving Mamoru Samuragochi has forced concerts featuring his works to be cancelled and prompted a publishing house to halt sales of his autobiography.
A staff of Tokyo Hustle Copy, a music publisher, received an email from Samuragochi on Sunday, saying Sonatina For Violin, the score which was to be published on Tuesday, was not his own work. The employee replied, saying: "The score can be published if even part of its melody was your own composition."
But Samuragochi said: "(What I did for the music is mainly) tell a ghost-writer my image of the music."
The music company then decided not to publish four pieces of his work or license the scores.
Mr Junji Ohono, a managing director of the Tokyo Symphony of Orchestra, which has performed the piece since 2010, said: "Composers usually attend rehearsals, but he never did. I'm shocked because the response was good whenever we played the piece."
Samon Promotion, organiser of a series of concerts around the nation where Symphony No. 1 Hiroshima and another piece assumed to be composed by Samuragochi were to be performed, said on Wednesday it will cancel the 15 performances.
Meanwhile, staff of the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra were busy coping featuring the symphony to be held in Nagasaki this month and Fukuoka next month.
Gentosha, which published Samuragochi's autobiography last May, has decided to stop printing the book.
The timing could hardly have been worse for figure skater Daisuke Takahashi. He said in a statement he would continue to stake to a piece of music at the Winter Games in Sochi which was thought to have been composed by Samuragochi.
The athlete had little choice given all the time and work needed to prepare an Olympic routine - and hoped the revelations would not overshadow his performance. Sonatina For Violin will be played during his short programme at Sochi.
Takahashi chose the music from among several pieces proposed by his choreographer, according to the agency. It learnt the music was composed by a person other than Samuragochi last Tuesday and reported it to Takahashi.
Last Wednesday, Samuragochi, 50, confessed that someone else had written his most famous works. These include Symphony No. 1 Hiroshima, about the 1945 atomic bombing of his home city, a classical music hit in Japan, and the theme music for the video games Resident Evil and Onimusha.
Samuragochi did not say why he had chosen to come forward at that particular moment but a statement from his lawyer said: "Samuragochi is deeply sorry as he has betrayed fans and disappointed others. He knows he could not possibly make any excuse for what he has done."
The reason for this sudden repentance became clear on Thurday when the ghost-writer revealed himself to be Mr Takashi Niigaki, 43, a part time lecturer at a prestigious music college in Tokyo. He said he had written more than 20 songs for Samuragochi since 1996, for which he received 7 million yen.
He said he had threatened to go public in the past but Samuragochi begged him not to. He could not take it anymore when he learnt one of his songs would be used by the skater. He told his story to a weekly tabloid, which went on sale on Thursday. "He told me that if I didn't write songs for him, he'd commit suicide," Mr Niigaki told a news conference. "But I could not bear the thought of Takahashi being seen by the world as a co-conspirator in our crime."
Perhaps just as shocking was Mr Niigaki's assertion that Samuragochi was never deaf. He said he had regular chats with Samuragochi, who listened to and commented on his compositions. He said the deafness was just "an act that he was performing to the outside world".
In past interviews, Samuragochi had said he was completely deaf in one ear but had some hearing in the other that was assisted by a hearing aid.
The scandal has brought an abrupt fall from grace for the man who looked the part of a modern-day composer with his long hair, stylish suits and ever-present sunglasses. Much of his appeal seemed to lie in his inspiring life story, especially for a country so fascinated by classical music.
Japan is the birthplace of the Suzuki method, and superstars such as conductor Seiji Ozawa and pianist Mitsuko Uchida are the source of great pride. The public adored Samuragochi, who appeared to have overcome a serious physical disability, the loss of almost all of his hearing at age 35 because of a degenerative condition, to achieve musical greatness.
In a 2007 autobiography titled Symphony No. 1, he described himself as the son of an atomic bomb survivor and able to play Beethoven on the piano by age 10. He seemed to reach the height of his popularity last year, when Japan's public broadcaster, NHK, aired a documentary that followed him as he met survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northern Japan.
Yomiuri Shimbun, New York Times
