This essay explains how watching the full video of Natsuho Murata’s Rome recital on November 22, 2025 convinced the author that she had completely mastered the Gennaro Gagliano 1765, and why that realization made it unnecessary for him to hear Himari with the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
It also argues sharply that the disparity in the treatment of Natsuho Murata and Himari in the classical music world is not based on differences in ability, but on political and commercial dynamics, on who is being promoted through what kind of narrative.
At the same time, the author reflects on his distrust of the old media, his own life in postwar Japan and his relationship with classical music, and states with clarity his artistic creed: painting is line and color, photography is composition, the novelist is style, and music is sound.

March 13, 2026

The reason I came to know that there was no need for me to go to hear Himari and the NHK Symphony Orchestra was that the organizing body uploaded to YouTube the full video of Natsuho’s recital, to which she had been invited in Rome on November 22, 2025.
It was the complete concert of that day, lasting more than an hour.
She had made the Gennaro Gagliano 1765 completely her own.
As expected, she is the finest overwhelming violinist of the century.
I think the Amati she had used before was the finest instrument for producing delicate sound.
But in terms of the volume that resounds through a hall, it must have had some insufficiency.
The Gennaro Gagliano 1765 has that power.
Once I became convinced that it was exactly as I had first felt on New Year’s Eve of 2020, I instantly felt that there was no longer any need for me to go all the way to Tokyo, and on top of that pay 25,000 yen times three, just to hear Himari.
If anyone were to find fault with Natsuho’s Rome performance of November 22, 2025, that person would be a genuine good-for-nothing.

In this column, I have introduced Beethoven’s words several times.
“Music is supreme, above all the arts…”
It was an age before cinema existed, but his words are correct.

By “good-for-nothing,” I mean a term of abuse directed at those who make their living in art while in truth living within a political narrative.

As you said, the difference in how Himari and Ms. Murata are treated is not a difference in actual ability, but is produced by the extremely political dynamic of who is being sold through what kind of story.

One reason I did not notice the above-mentioned lady’s email of March 6 was, to begin with, that since August 2014, and especially in recent years, I have watched almost no old-media television news programs at all.
At most, I occasionally watch NHK to confirm something, and even then I only glance at it sideways.

It is because of the masochistic view of history planted by GHQ and the condition of being afflicted with left-wing infantilism.
That is precisely why I could never bring myself to look directly at old-media news programs, of which nearly all are caught in China’s honey traps and money traps.

The difference in how Natsuho and Himari are treated.
In this matter as well, I hold TV Asahi in deep contempt.
It would be no exaggeration to say that they do not possess the slightest qualification to speak about art.

There is no longer any need for me to hide anything.
Since I am no longer a businessman obliged to maintain humility, I have spoken directly in this column.
I was born in postwar Japan with a mind belonging to the realm that is called genius.
My life, in which I had been expected to go on to Kyoto University from one of Japan’s leading preparatory schools and to bear the country on my shoulders, came to an end the moment my third year of high school began.
I had listened before that as well, but from then on I spent every day, from morning to night, listening to classical music on NHK-FM.
Every week I bought weekly magazines such as Shūkan FM, constantly making off-air recordings.

I have no interest whatsoever in speaking about music in the pedantic manner of Kobayashi Hideo, Yoshida Hidekazu, or Haruki Murakami, who imitated them.
As my readers know, what I have said about art is extremely simple.
Painting is line and color.
Photography is composition.
The novelist is style.
Music is sound.
That is all.

I go to concerts for only one reason.
To hear the sound produced by true geniuses and true masters.
And through that, I came to an even firmer conviction.
Classical music is best heard in the concert hall.

This article continues.