I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how...
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That's a name worth following up -
http://www.presser.com/Composers/info.cfm?Name=ELLENTAAFFEZWILICH
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dpopular&field-keywords=Ellen+Taaffe+Zwilich&x=12&y=20
Talk about concert music having aspirations! At least it often does in Boston, and maybe soon in New York City, under the Philharmonic's incoming director.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/clivedavis/2564806/circle-of-fifths.thtml