Japan’s Beethoven ‘not deaf and can’t read sheet music’

The man who was the musical brains behind a supposedly deaf composer dubbed Japan’s Beethoven has claimed that the mock maestro was not hearing-impaired — and couldn’t even write sheet music.

The startling allegations come a day after composer Mamoru Samuragochi, 50, confessed to hiring another man to write his best-known works, as he shot to fame in the mid-1990s with classical compositions that provided the soundtrack to video games including Resident Evil.

Samuragochi has not responded publicly to the fresh allegations.