TOKYO -- He was celebrated as a prolific musical genius whose compositions appeared in popular video games and the competition routine of a top figure skater in the coming Sochi Olympics. His deafness won him praise as Japan's modern-day Beethoven.

It turns out that his magnum opus was his own masquerade.


Across a nation long captivated by Western classical music, people reacted with remorse, outrage and even the rare threat of a lawsuit after Samuragochi's revelations that he had hired a ghostwriter since the 1990s to compose most of his music. The anger turned to disbelief when the ghostwriter himself came forward to accuse Samuragochi of faking his deafness, apparently to win public sympathy and shape the Beethoven persona.

The scandal began Wednesday, when Samuragochi 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, which became a classical music hit in Japan; the theme music for the video games Resident Evil and Onimusha; and Sonatina for Violin, which the Japanese Olympic figure skater Daisuke Takahashi is scheduled to use in his short program performance at the Winter Games.




"Samuragochi is deeply sorry as he has betrayed fans and disappointed others," said the written confession, released by Samuragochi's lawyer. "He knows he could not possibly make any excuse for what he has done."



"He told me that if I didn't write songs for him, he'd commit suicide," Niigaki told a crowded news conference. "But I could not bear the thought of skater Takahashi being seen by the world as a co-conspirator in our crime."

Perhaps just as shocking was Niigaki's assertion that Samuragochi was never deaf. Niigaki said he had regular conversations with Samuragochi, who listened to and commented on his compositions. Niigaki said the deafness was just "an act."