On a glowering October morning, I exit the Chiyoda Line at Yushima Station and stroll northwesterly through the back streets of Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward.
I am in search of Kyu-Iwasaki-tei, the Western-style residence commissioned by Baron Hisaya Iwasaki (1865-1955), third president of Mitsubishi, the company his family founded. My path climbs off the public road, wends below mature trees, then dead-ends at an uninhabited 19th-century mansion.
A chilly wind tosses the spidery limbs of a Himalayan cedar in the grounds. Ornate arches, pilasters, and fish-scale shingles give the place, now open to the public, a haunted air. I shell out ¥400 to enter and creep shoeless on the creaking parquet floors. From somewhere down the high-ceilinged hall, I hear haunting music. A soprano sings Yoshinao Nakada's melancholic "Chiisai Aki Mitsuketa" ("Hints of Autumn Found") and my skin prickles. I have, it seems, stumbled on one of the free seasonal concerts held at Kyu-Iwasaki-tei.