Tokyo: He was celebrated as a prolific musical genius whose compositions appeared everywhere from popular video games to the competition routine of a top figure skater in the upcoming Sochi Olympics. His deafness won him praise as Japan’s digital-age Beethoven.

But on Thursday, Japan reacted with remorse, outrage, and even the rare threat of a lawsuit after the composer, Mamoru Samuragochi, 50, admitted that he had hired a ghostwriter since the 1990s to write most of his music. The anger turned to disbelief when the ghostwriter himself came forward to accuse Mr Samuragochi of faking his deafness, apparently to win public sympathy.

The scandal began on Wednesday, when Mr Samuragochi suddenly confessed that someone else had written his most famous works. These include Symphony No. 1 Hiroshima, about the 1945 atomic bombing of his home city, which became a classical music hit in Japan; the theme music for the video games Resident Evil and Onimusha; and Sonatina for Violin, which the Japanese Olympic figure skater Daisuke Takahashi is scheduled to use in his short program performance at the Winter Games in Sochi.

“Samuragochi is deeply sorry as he has betrayed fans and disappointed others,” said the written confession, released by Mr Samuragochi’s lawyer. “He knows he could not possibly make any excuse for what he has done.”