May 16, 2026.
Saturday morning.
Nakanoshima Rose Garden just after dawn.
I decided to create this morning’s work using only pieces selected from Ririko Takagi’s YouTube channel.
In Japan today, genius violinists are appearing like glittering stars.
As a person who does not live in Kyoto, I believe I am the person in the world who has visited and photographed Kyoto Botanical Garden more than anyone else.
This was all the more so because it is located immediately outside Kitayama Station on the Kyoto Municipal Subway Karasuma Line.
Next to it stands Kyoto Concert Hall.
Last year, I went there to hear her afternoon recital.
Until the hall opened, I photographed in the botanical garden next door.
There is hardly a more blissful time than that.
My seat was not bad.
My first impression of her was, above all, the sound of the Stradivarius.
She had made the Stradivarius completely her own.
During the intermission and after the performance, the word “Stradivarius” was flying around among the men in the lobby.
Thankfully, she has opened a YouTube channel and provides many performances there.
The other day, while I was taking a bath, a thought came to me: perhaps Ririko Takagi is a person with an exceptionally strong inner core.
True geniuses, after all, always possess an extraordinary strength of character.
Her sound is very strong.
It is thick and powerful.
A flash of intuition came to me: perhaps her sound is equal to the line of Hasegawa Tōhaku.
Her posts also appear on Instagram fairly often.
It is well known that Japan has many exceptionally beautiful female violinists.
It is also well known that she is one of their leading representatives.
Recently, after using an audio source from ARD, for the first time in my 703rd release, I encountered a situation in which my own work could not be viewed.
All of my works are sent out to the world free of charge.
Yet their production consumes a large part of my life.
Even producing a single work takes a considerable amount of time.
If the time spent photographing is included, it is almost a full day’s work.
It is, in both name and reality, a work of great labor.
If such a work were to be banned, it would be intolerable.
All the more so because it is unpaid work.
For that reason, I decided to create this work using selections from her channel.
I believe it has become a wonderful work.
May the excellence of my photographs taken this morning, and the excellence of her performances, become widely known and appreciated by many people throughout the world.
The order of the music is as follows.
Elgar: Chanson de Matin.
Richard Strauss: Morgen!
Szymanowski: Paganini Caprice No.21.
Glazunov: Grand Adagio from the ballet suite Raymonda, Op.57.
Schumann: “Der Nussbaum” from Myrthen.
Schubert: Ave Maria.
Caccini: Ave Maria.
Schumann: “Der Nussbaum” from Myrthen.
The audio sources were selected from performances publicly available on Ririko Takagi’s YouTube channel.