Tokyo has eight symphony orchestras, of which the NHK Symphony Orchestra (founded in 1926) is one of the most prestigious – and wealthiest, supported by the broadcaster, NHK, and by private/corporate donors. It gives concerts in NHK Hall and also at Suntory Hall, a glamorous and rather beautiful venue in the centre of the city which seats about 2000. The audience tends to be smarter, older and the programming somewhat conservative.

Outside Suntory Hall, which opened in 1986, is a square name Herbert von Karajan Platz: the Austrian conductor was a great supporter of and advisor to the hall (and, not surprisingly, the “vineyard” layout of the seating around the stage is not unlike the interior of Karajan’s Philharmonie, though unlike the Berlin hall you still sense the depth of the hall in a traditional shoe-box way). Concerts start at 7pm, take a 15-minute interval and are over by 8.45pm or so – at which point a large proportion of the audience charges for the door for the inevitable epic journey home, often to the farthest reaches of this enormous city of 13 million.

The NHK Symphony Orchestra’s line-up of “titled” conductors is impressive: Dutoit, Previn, Blomstedt, Ashkenazy, Sawallisch, Toyama and Otaka, and when guest conductors are invited they tend to come for about 12 days giving three pairs of concerts (two at NHK Hall, one in Suntory). I caught the central programme which found Semyon Bychkov conducting Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto (with Alexei Volodin) and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.

The string sound of the NHKSO is gorgeous: fine-grained, smooth and with a deep autumnal glow – at times it was so finally woven and dense that it threatened to overwhelm the piano, though the Hall has a lovely acoustic with an almost perfect decay. The Rachmaninov played to the ensemble’s strengths with its surging melodies and long string lines. This was a civilised, nicely presented performance, though it certainly wasn’t a barn-stormer. I don’t know Volodin’s playing so I'm not sure if he was toning things down, or whether he too favoured a more poetic approach. My guess, judging by the Tchaikovsky – which does call for more obvious red-bloodedness – is that he was matching the cool of his partners. The brass and winds were a little lacking in individuality and I’d have liked a little more sense of the little snippets of melody being passed from player rather than being mere played. And a sense of danger, too, should surely accompany the return of the Fate theme throughout the first movement. The third movement Scherzo was superbly done, the precision and delicacy of the pizzicato playing very impressive. And in the finale you could sense Bychkov trying to ramp up the adrenalin which he succeeded in – but just for the last few pages!

I wonder whether it’s a question of temperament: this is music that requires heart-on-sleeve emotion and maybe the cool of these players – it’s interesting that the strings rarely move, even at the most trenchant moments – doesn’t engage fully with such in-your-face music. I’d love to hear them play Sibelius or Nielsen…or even some French fare!

Earlier in day, it was the inevitable (and much-awaited) trip to Tower Records in Shibuya, an area of Tokyo that is just like the photos – thousands of people crossing the road, gigawatts of neon lighting, and noise! The door to Tower – which carries the now sadly redundant moniker “It’s a global thing” – was mobbed by teenage girls desperately snapping photos on their mobiles of pictures (!) of a Korean boy-band, the latest pop sensation here. The Classical department is five floors up and by the time you step off the escalator the sounds of Korea’s answer to JLS has been replaced by Masaaki Suzuki’s latest Bach album, and the mood was definitely conductive to some serious damage to the credit-card.

I chatted to the Classical buyer who said that sales were, not surprisingly, given the recession, down a little, but he was justly proud of the historic recordings section (entitled Collectors) and it seems to be quite the focal point of the floor (which is about the size that HMV’s Bond Street branch used to be). Prices range from ¥1000 (approx £7) for a single CD (a reissue of an RCA Takemitsu album on Tower's own reissue imprint – well-worth looking out for as they're selected by the store's clearly knowledgeable buyers) to about ¥2500 (about £17.50) for more recherché fare. There are a number of fascinating local reissue labels including Green Door, DIW and Venezia (Russian but not available at home). A three-disc set of Lev Oborin on Venezia was a real bargain at ¥1590. Veteran performers are clearly much appreciated here, and there are evidently some extremely discerning collectors – the idea of carrying a shopping basket in a record store is most impressive – and I saw a couple of people with armfuls of historic sets.

Visiting artists’ discs are prominently featured and, not surprisingly, sell well, and many take part in appearances at the store. The DG signing, pianist Alice Sara Ott, had recently been there and had apparently sold huge numbers of discs. Crossover, mercifully, seems to be kept at arm’s bay, though there were a couple of displays that shift discs in bulk – one was of music associated with Japan’s leading ice-skater Daisuke Takahashi (currently doing well at the Winter Olympics), and another is Nodame Cantabile.

Nodame Cantabile is something of a multi-media runaway success. It tells the story – artistic and emotional – of a hugely talented (fictional) Japanese pianist Shinichi Chiaki, son of a famous pianist, multi-lingual, tall, handsome, raised in Europe but stuck in Japan because of his fear of flying and ships (!) – and clearly with a temper and a half! His goal, though, is to be a world-famous conductor and work with the best orchestras “in Europe”. The object of his affections is a fellow pianist called Megumi “Nodame” Noda.

It started life as an manga (cartoon) book, then spawned a series of animé (animated cartoon) shows and also a live-action TV series. And the CDs and video games are flying off the shelves. I’ve read one volume of the manga books (quite difficult mastering the reading of a book seemingly backwards), though from the clip of the TV drama I've seen, Shinicki Chiaki’s conducting style makes Leonard Bernstein’s seem positively demure! And it’s selling proper classical music, so all power to its elbow!

(As I write this I’ve learnt of the death of one of Gramophone’s contributors, Patrick O’Connor, a wonderful writer and a man of immense and eclectic tastes in so many different fields of art. I’m going to write a few words about him for the main website, but in his honour, I’ve gone to eMusic and downloaded a quintet of “essential” Joséphine Baker songs – delivered with her gorgeous American-French and, alternately, Frenchified-American accent! Watching the snow fall over Tokyo as she sings in the background seems unbearably poignant. I hope she’s waiting for him, sequined from head to toe, with a large and perfect martini in a beautiful Baccarat glass…)