Comment #2 only confirms my suspicions. It WAS a hustle.

The letter I wrote to Mr Tsuji was intended for him personally, not for publication. I was very surprised indeed to see in printed in full in BI!
I had shared it with Ellen Pfeiffer (also sorely missed as a wonderfully wise and insightful music critic at the Boston Herald, and now in charge of publicity at NEC), who shared it with BI.

Let me explain: Mr Tsuji was at first understandably wary of my invitation to accept the score of Sinfonia da Requiem, since he was under the impression that the Government of Japan had already accepted it back in 1940. Hence my remark that I had “unraveled the story of what actually happened”. I of course didn’t have to do any original scholarship to find the facts, they were all cogently laid out in the Program Note for the concert by Richard Freed. But Mr Tsuji did not know all the facts, nor did he have time (nor probably a library card) to research the matter.

Since he thought that the composition had been accepted by the Japanese at the time, it would be meaningless to “accept it again”, as it were. During my conversation with Mr Tsuji at the Japanese Consulate I pointed out that the score had been received, but not accepted. This led to a delightful discussion of the subtle difference between “to receive” and ” to accept”. Once he had understood the true circumstance, he was able to agree to “accept” the score at the concert – a gesture that was, of course, entirely symbolic. Mr Buell seems to want to invest it with much more impact than was intended. He forgets that I am a teacher, and my job is to engage with the music students at NEC about matters concerning the music they are performing.

There is no question whose initiative this was. It was mine. Benjamin Britten was an important figure in my early life and it was my first engagement with the Sinfonia Da Requiem. I was troubled, as I read more about the circumstances of the work’s composition, that the Japanese always appeared as the villains in the saga – insensitive, belligerent, war-mongering country rejects masterpiece by leading British composer. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that Benjamin Britten himself had caused the problem. What was he thinking? Japan had asked for a celebratory work for a national anniversary and he wrote a work about war, full of anger, strife and dissonance. Moreover, he titled the movements with words from the Roman Catholic Mass! He clearly wasn’t thinking about Japan, he was thinking about his own experience. There was no way the Japanese could have accepted the piece for that occasion.

However, now we can step back from the parochial circumstances of 70 years ago and see that actually the work – a moving and poignant plea for peace – is a perfect message for our time AND for Japan, a leading voice in the international quest for peace. This is called Transformation – when one set of circumstances is re-framed to cause a completely different perspective – no-one is wrong and a situation that had formerly created strife and bad feeling is suddenly seen to create harmony and light. This was a profound learning experience for the students and it released in them a quite extraordinary unity of purpose in the performance which was clearly transmitted to the audience.
Lesson learned.

Let me clear up Mr Buell’s further confusions:

There has been no ban on further performances of the work in Japan (see Mr Greenleaf’s review).
The Japanese Government had no part in this initiative.
A copy of the score is all we gave the Consul. The original is, I believe, in the Britten-Pears Library in Suffolk and not ours to give. It was, of course only a symbolic gesture.
The remark Mr Buell refers to was not in the “letter” but in my speech from the stage. I said “The tension that this situation caused has not been resolved to this day” which is true.
“We intend to resolve it tonight” in print sounds outrageously pompous and might be seen as a “solidly planted cue for applause”, but if Mr Buell had been present at the event he would have noticed my wry smile and heard the laughter that the line was intended to elicit.

There was only one remark during my speech that caused applause: “At the end of the performance he will accept a copy of the score as recognition that, at last, wisdom and understanding prevail between our people” I wasn’t expecting it, but it was nice.

It is fair to say that Britten’s status caused (and in sense forced) his exile to America. Many Conscientious Objectors, including W H Auden, were made to feel so uncomfortable in Britain – the authorities made it clear that they were not welcome – that to leave seemed to some the only option.

Mr Buell ends: “If you think about it, Mr. Tsuji, the Consul General, wasn’t in any position to decline what was being presented to him, was he?” Actually, he did at first decline it, but as a result of the cordial and warm-hearted discussion at the Consulate, he changed his mind and willingly agreed. In his remarks at the concert he expressed his pleasure at being offered this opportunity to share his feelings on the matter. However, I suspect that if he had known what a torrent of words his simple and moving gesture was going to unleash, he might well have reconsidered the matter!

Ben Zander
Faculty New England Conservatory

Has there been a ban on performances of the work in Japan up to now? And did the Japanese government itself actually request a copy — a copy only? — of the score?

It’s not at all clear — perhaps intentionally — just whose initiative this really was. No doubt veteran Zander watchers, long accustomed to being amazed and appalled, will have their suspicions.

And that “letter” leaves an impression its author surely cannot have intended. ” … The tension that this situation caused,” he writes, “has not been resolved to this day. We intend to resolve it tonight.” Note the solidly planted cue for applause, Meanwhile, b.s. detectors all over the city start to go off.

It is not correct, either, to say that the war in Europe “forced his [Britten's] exile to America.” Forced? England was never invaded. And most of Britten’s contemporaries stayed home.

As to “the story of the Britten work” that Zander says he “managed to unravel,” this is common knowledge — anyone with a valid library card could found out the same.

If you think about it, Mr. Tsuji, the Consul General, wasn’t in any position to decline what was being presented to him, was he?