The musical brains behind a supposedly deaf composer dubbed "Japan's Beethoven" claimed today that the mock maestro was a scheming manipulator who could hear normally -- but couldn't even write sheet music.
The startling allegations come a day after Mamoru Samuragochi confessed to hiring another man to write his best-known works, including a smash hit that had been adopted by classical music-lovers as an anthem to Japan's tsunami-hit communities.
In a press conference that lasted for more than an hour and was broadcast live on television, part-time music school teacher Takashi Niigaki said for the last 18 years he had been penning the tunes.
"I am an accomplice of Samuragochi because I continued composing just as he demanded, although I knew he was deceiving people," he said.
Niigaki told reporters he had been paid just 7 million yen (USD 70,000) over the nearly two decades of their collaboration, during which he had composed more than 20 pieces.
"I told him a few times that we should stop doing this, but he never gave in. Also he said he would commit suicide if I stopped composing for him."
The 43-year-old said he had called time on the deception after learning that Winter Olympics medal hopeful, figure skater Daisuke Takahashi had chosen to dance to a piece that would be credited to Samuragochi.
"I was afraid that even Takahashi, who will perform in the Olympics for Japan, would be used to enforce the lies made by Samuragochi and me," he said.
The piece is a sonatina supposedly composed in tribute to a teenage violinist with a prosthetic right arm who had been supported by the well-known musician.
The girl's father said in a statement that the family never suspected Samuragochi was anything other than he claimed to be when became her patron.
"But in the past year, he demanded our absolute obedience to the point where we could no longer take it," he said. "We told him we could not obey any more in November last year, which provoked his anger. Our relationship has been severed since then."
Samuragochi, 50, came to public attention in the mid-1990s with classical compositions that provided the soundtrack to video games including Resident Evil, despite reputedly having a degenerative illness that left him profoundly deaf by the age of 35.
