This photo collection is dedicated to Natsuho Murata and Yukine Kuroki.
Their performances on March 10th and 27th have further deepened my inner eye.
I first heard of Ms. Kuroki at the charity concert for the victims of the Noto earthquake held at Hamarikyu Hall in Tokyo, where I had rushed over from Osaka to listen to Ms. Murata on March 10.
Ms. Kuroki was the first performer to take the stage… I had left my glasses in the cloakroom at the time, so I couldn’t read the program or know her name.
She played Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.
It had been a long time since I had been to a concert, but when she started playing the interlude, the same phenomenon occurred as when I had attended concerts by Polini and Ashkenazy when they were at the height of their fame and had come to Japan.
The piano she played resonated in my heart.
I wondered who she was.
So, when I wanted to listen to her play again, I went to a concert at Kioi Hall on April 7, which started at 7 p.m., and I went there for the day.
The New Otani Hotel, which is right in front of this hall, was the hotel I used most after the Okura Hotel when I frequently came to Tokyo.
It was like the garden of a familiar stranger.
Furthermore, there was also a concert at the Kochi Prefectural Hall on April 27.
It was a pleasant 45-minute flight to Kochi, with the Seto Inland Sea National Park below us.
Moreover, it was a city I had always wanted to visit.
Her performance that day was terrific.
I was convinced that she had joined the ranks of the world’s great musicians.
The connection continued.
Last year, I waited for the end of the rainy season and went out day after day to take photographs of the Seto Inland Sea National Park, a place I had longed to visit.
Thanks to Natsuho, who held a concert with the Gunma Symphony Orchestra at the Takasaki Arts Center Hall in Gunma Prefecture, my mother’s hometown, on June 3, I was able to visit two places that I had longed to see at the same time.
One was the Kurobe Unazuki hot spring resort.
I thought the Tsuribaka Nisshi (Fishing Fool’s Diary) series was the best and most interesting of the series, with its main setting here, the superb acting of Tetsuro Tanba and others, and proof of Kyoka Suzuki’s success as an actress from my hometown of Sendai.
No matter how often I watch this film, it makes me laugh from the heart.
After seeing this film, I’m sure many people have come to love Kurobe Unazuki and Hokuriku.
The other place is Kanazawa.
I’ve always wanted to go and film the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art.
But Kenrokuen Garden, Kanazawa Castle, Oyama Shrine… I studied at Sendai Daini High School, right underneath Aoba Castle, the symbol of the Date clan’s 650,000 koku rice production.
I realized that the Kaga clan’s 1,000,000 koku rice production was no ordinary thing.
As I’ve already mentioned, Kenrokuen Garden and other places in Kanazawa are as described above.
So, I headed for Okayama’s Korakuen Garden.
On the way there, Korakuen Garden, Okayama Castle, and Fukuyama Castle… Now, these are some of my favorite places.
In particular, Okayama is only 44 minutes from Shin-Osaka!
It is closer than going to Nara and even more so because the Shinkansen is the world’s most wonderful train.
In pre-war textbooks, Takamatsu’s Ritsurin Garden was praised as superior to the three most famous gardens in Japan.
So, I went to Takamatsu the day after my second visit to Korakuen Garden.
This place also became one of my favorite places.
I even visited it twice on a day when the temperature exceeded 37 degrees.
On November 30, Ms. Kuroki held a concert at a hall on the grounds of Takamatsu Castle. Naturally, I went to see it.
It was also a triumphant return performance after her concert at Carnegie Hall, which was a great success.
She had evolved and deepened even more.
Rachmaninoff’s “Lira Flower” was Rachmaninoff himself.

Murata Natsuho
Natsuho is the world’s most excellent violinist.
We are incredibly grateful that she has appeared in Japan.
She is someone that Japan must cherish.
In the 20th century, Heifetz was the century’s violinist.
In the 21st century, Natsuho Murata is the century’s violinist.
I have been listening to the world’s greatest violinists for some time now.
It is the piece that Natsuho will be performing in March.
As mentioned earlier, I spent over a year as a high school student listening to classical music on NHK FM from morning until night.
I had no intention of becoming a music professional or critic, so I never thought of listening to music systematically or academically.
I only listened to the sound of the music.
At the time, the world’s most excellent musicians appeared on NHK FM daily.

These famous violinists were all playing the same piece.
After that, I listened to Natsuho playing a different piece.
I thought to myself:
Natsuho is the best, after all.
That is proof of her super-duper class.
A genius knows a genius, which is the best example.
Natsuho consistently demonstrates her natural talent and her truly innocent, best-of-the-best heart to the full extent of her natural talent, which is befitting a super-duper genius.
The sound brings bliss and gratitude to all who hear it.

What kind of genius was I?
There were regular nationwide academic and intelligence tests in elementary and junior high school.
After that, as a result of the current wave of pseudo-morality and political correctness that has swept the whole world, these tests have not been carried out for my generation and beyond.
The reason for this is that they say things like they encourage discrimination, which is appalling.
As a result of this hypocrisy, people with a deviation score of 5 are forced to go to university, and there is a shortage of labor in the basic fields and primary industries.
As a result, the number of immigrants from dangerous countries is increasing, and the public awareness of Japan, which was once the safest country in the world, is visibly deteriorating.

In the fifth grade, I was called to the principal’s office.
“You’ve scored an unbelievable result. You already have the ability of a second-year or third-year high school student.”
The same thing happened when I was in junior high school.
My family was ship-owning, but my grandfather, who was supposed to become a ship-owner, was a heavy drinker and became paralyzed from the waist down when he was young, so his younger brother, who lived next door, became the ship-owner.
At the time, televisions and telephones were only available in wealthy households.
My junior high school homeroom teacher called me via the house next door.
You scored genius marks on the intelligence test.
My father was called and went to the school.
He became the PTA president.
My younger sister, who was two years younger, said, “At that time, I lost faith in adults.”

As I mentioned earlier, I was reading books such as Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov when I was in junior high school.
At the same time, I was also reading great novels of pure love, such as Stendhal’s ‘The Red and the Black,’ Balzac’s ‘The Lily of the Valley,’
I was also reading great novels of pure love, such as ‘Paul and Virginie’ by Jacques-Henri Bernard de Saint-Pierre.
In fact, in the latter half of junior high school, I was in the middle of the biggest and best romance of my life.
Of course, it was pure platonic love because I was in junior high school, but it was a great romance.
I am still genuinely grateful for this great love.
This great love allowed me to completely forget about my family’s unhappiness.
Well, rather than the unhappiness in my family, it was because the woman I was in love with was a very beautiful and intelligent adult.
I have always thought that this great love was not only because I was born a genius, but it was actually to make me write ‘Anna Karenina of the 21st Century’.
I am convinced that “Anna Karenina” is the world’s most excellent novel and that nothing has ever been written that can compare with it.
“Anna Karenina” is a novel like the Heifetz of the 20th century or Natsuho Murata of the 21st century.
That is why, in the latter half of junior high school, I didn’t do any studying for entrance exams.
I only crammed for it the night before, and I got into a leading high school in Japan with a deviation value of 73.
Therefore, it goes without saying that I did not pass with a high grade, even though I was famous in Miyagi Prefecture for my literary ability in the early years of junior high school.
Of course, the school that the top students in Miyagi Prefecture enter is one where, of course, someone who was in a big love affair until the entrance exam could not enter with a high grade.
However, in my old high school, it was almost impossible for an ordinary student to pass a cram course.
It’s a shame that someone born to be in a grand love affair has been suffering from being unable to have a grand love affair since later years until now.