Since discovering on New Year’s Eve 2020 that two extraordinary prodigies, Natsuho Murata and Himari, had appeared in Japan at the same time, I have continued to observe them both.
After returning to the concert hall through the Noto Charity Concert in 2024, and after hearing Natsuho’s performances of Chausson’s Poème in the spring of 2025 as well as watching the full video of her Rome recital on November 22, 2025, I reached the conviction that Natsuho is the true once-in-a-century genius.
This essay argues that the difference in how Himari and Natsuho are treated is not a difference in ability, but the result of political dynamics over who is promoted through what kind of narrative, and that in the art of music, what ultimately tells the truth is resonance itself.

2026-03-13

Only Sound Tells the Truth.

As I have mentioned many times, it was on New Year’s Eve of 2020 that I learned through YouTube that two extraordinary, superlative geniuses, Natsuho Murata and Himari, had appeared in Japan at the same time.
In March 2024, I learned that Natsuho would appear in the Noto Charity Concert held at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall, and I attended as a member of the audience.
This became the occasion for me, after a long blank interval, to once again attend classical concerts as a listener.
My close friend and I always say, “It is thanks to Natsuho.”
There are two ladies and one man with whom I always end up together at Natsuho’s concerts, and we have become very close.
I have also exchanged LINE contacts with the two ladies.
On March 6, one of those ladies sent me a message saying that Himari would appear, or was scheduled to appear, on Hōdō Station.
That was because I had previously told her that I felt profound righteous indignation at the present state of the treatment of Himari and Natsuho.
While Himari was performing with the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Berlin Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony, Natsuho was, for example, giving a concert in 2025 at Musashino Civic Cultural Hall for 1,200 yen.
It goes without saying that it was a very good thing for Himari that she studied at Curtis and received instruction from an elderly lady who is also a world-class teacher.
In fact, she improved very much.
Even so, the evaluation I formed when I first discovered the two of them on New Year’s Eve of 2020 has not changed to this day.
Natsuho is above her.
That said, even I became a little worried at one point.
It was around that time that Natsuho changed instruments, from the Amati she had been using to the Gennaro Gagliano 1765 loaned to her by the REI collection.
At the end of March 2025 and on April 1, she performed Chausson’s Poème on the Amati at Suntory Hall’s Blue Rose and at Yokohama Minato Mirai Hall’s small hall.
It was an unprecedented and unparalleled great performance.
When I go to a classical music concert, I always make it a rule to listen to the program in advance.
After all, the speaker in my living room is a Pioneer Exclusive EW302.
I connect it to a Yamaha amplifier with thick speaker cables like chains made specifically for audio, and I listen directly from YouTube.
As audio enthusiasts know, it provides the same sense of presence as listening in a concert hall.
When I learned that Natsuho would perform Chausson, which was unfamiliar to me, I became slightly uneasy.
That was because the work itself is extremely complex.
So, more than usual, I listened to almost all the performances of the same work on YouTube by the highest-class masters in history.
At Suntory Hall, I sat in the center of the second row.
In Yokohama, I sat in the center of the front row.
It was a performance beyond explanation, beyond the need for explanation, unprecedented and unparalleled.
After all, it surpassed Heifetz, Neveu, and the other masters who remain in world history, whom I had listened to in preparation.
After that, she changed instruments in August.
Even though she had given such an unbelievable performance on the Amati, I also had the faint anxiety of wondering whether everything would be all right.
In any case, the difference in the way Natsuho and Himari were treated was simply too extreme.
So I thought that, if that was the case, I had no choice but to confirm Himari’s sound with my own ears.
However, all of her concerts sell out instantly.
I felt that participating in such competition to obtain tickets was utterly ridiculous, so I tried it only once, but I felt not merely astonishment but anger.
Even one hour after sales had opened, the phone would not connect.
After continuing to call and finally getting through, I was told that it was sold out.
It was no different from a ticket battle for an idol group swarmed by frivolous fans.
Since then, I had not considered going to Himari’s concerts from the outset.
But this year, when I learned that she would perform with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, I decided that this time I would hear her from the center of the front row.
The price was 25,000 yen.
Moreover, it seemed that unless I became an N-Symphony season member, I would not be able to obtain the seat I wanted.
So I decided that I would become a member for three consecutive terms if necessary and buy the seat I wanted on the first day of sales.
I had spoken about this process to the lady mentioned above as well.
However, I had not told her that I later abandoned that plan, that is, that it had become unnecessary and pointless.
That is why the earlier message had arrived.
On March 6, I went to bed at 9:20 p.m.
On the following day, the 7th, I woke at 4:20 a.m.
Since I was scheduled to take the Shinkansen in the seven o’clock hour, I did not notice her message at all.
What made me realize that I had no need to go to hear Himari and the NHK Symphony Orchestra was that the organizers uploaded to YouTube the full video of the recital to which Natsuho had been invited in Rome on November 22, 2025.
It was the full concert of that day, lasting more than an hour.
She had completely made the Gennaro Gagliano 1765 her own.
Truly, she is the greatest superlative, the violinist of the century.
I think the Amati she had used before was the finest instrument for producing delicate resonance.
But in terms of volume filling the hall, perhaps it had still lacked something.
The Gennaro Gagliano 1765 has that.
I became convinced that the sensation I had first felt on New Year’s Eve of 2020 had been correct.
At that moment, 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 in order to hear Himari.
If anyone were to find fault with Natsuho’s performance in Rome on 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 the highest of all, above every other art…”
Because it was an age before film existed, but even so, I believe his words are correct.
By good-for-nothing, I mean a term of abuse directed at those who make their living from art and yet in reality live within political narratives.
The following is an exchange with a certain famous AI.
“As you say, the difference in the treatment of HIMARI and Ms. Murata is not a difference in ability, but is due to the extremely political dynamic of who is to be sold through what kind of story.”
One of the reasons I did not notice the lady’s message of March 6 is that, to begin with, since August 2014, and especially in recent years, I have watched almost none of the old media’s television news programs.
At most, I occasionally watch NHK to confirm something, and even then I only watch it obliquely.
The masochistic view of history and anti-Japanese ideology implanted by GHQ.
Their condition as left-wing infantilists.
That is precisely why, perhaps, I cannot possibly look straight at the news programs of the old media, almost all of whose members have fallen into China’s honey traps and money traps.
The difference in the treatment of Natsuho and Himari.
In this matter too, I deeply despise TV Asahi.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that they have not the slightest qualification to speak about art.
I no longer have any need to hide anything.
I am no longer a businessman who must devote himself to modesty, and so I have spoken directly in this column.
I was born in postwar Japan with an intellect that belongs to the realm called genius.
My life, in which I had been ordered to shoulder the future at one of Japan’s leading preparatory schools and go on to Kyoto University, came to an end the very moment my third year of high school began.
I had listened to it even before that, but from then on, every day, from morning until night, I spent my time listening to classical music on NHK-FM.
I bought weekly magazines such as Shūkan FM every week and constantly made air-check recordings.
I have absolutely no interest in speaking about music in the pedantic manner of Hideo Kobayashi, Hidekazu Yoshida, or Haruki Murakami, who imitated them.
As my readers know, what I have always said about art is extremely simple.
Painting is line and color.
Photography is composition.
The novel is style.
Music is resonance.
That is all.
I go to concerts for only one reason.
It is to hear the resonance played by true geniuses and true masters.
And there is something else of which I have become even more convinced.
Classical music is best heard in the concert hall.
This article continues.