Everybody loves a good scandal, and they don't come much riper than the tale of Mamoru Samuragochi. The public unmasking of "Japan's Beethoven" — a celebrated "deaf" composer who turned out to be neither completely deaf nor the main author of his work — was one of the biggest domestic news stories of 2014.
On the eve of the Sochi Olympics, where figure skater Daisuke Takahashi was due to perform to Samuragochi's "Sonatina for Violin," a part-time music lecturer named Takashi Niigaki stepped forward to reveal that he had been ghostwriting for the "deaf genius" for the past 18 years. Samuragochi, he said, couldn't even read the musical scores that bore his name. Oh, and he could hear perfectly well too.
The revelation prompted humiliating public apologies from Samuragochi, his record label and NHK, which had broadcast a laudatory documentary about him the previous year. Niigaki parlayed his newfound notoriety into minor celebrity status, while his former employer vanished from view.