TOKYO — Arthur Fiedler, famed conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, says the United States is on a culture binge "that is sometimes exaggerated."

We’re trying to stuff culture down people’s throats," the elegant, white-haired conductor said in an interview here Thursday.

"Like everything else, people must be given time to absorb it, not choke on it."

Fiedler was quick to add, however, that Americans today are far more aware culturally than they were 50 years ago when he launched his career as a violinist in the Boston Symphony.

"We used to give concerts at Yale, Harvard and Princeton," he said. "It was like pulling teeth to get a male college student out to listen to classical music in those days. It was considered sissy.

"Now they’re having bull sessions on Stravinsky and Schoenberg."

Fiedler attributed the change to the widespread improvement in radio programming and in sound reproduction equipment.

"If you hear a first-class artist on the radio or a record, you expect the same at a concert. Our audiences are spoiled and discerning."

The 70-year-old musician, who has pulled such stunts as conducting a symphonic arrangement of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in a Beatle wig, is a sharp critic of what he calls "culture vultures."

"I’m glad to see teen-agers listening to the Beatles," he said. "They’ll outgrow that. But in the meantime, they’re acquiring a listening habit.

"Mind you, I’m more critical of people who think there’s nothing in the world but Baroque music — ’Baroque ’n’ rollers’ I call them."

Fiedler maintains that a musical diet should be balanced like any other.

"You don’t want to eat roast beef three times a day every day. No one criticizes a Shakespeare scholar for reading a whodunit from time to time.

"But why, with music, must people sit around head in hands saying, ’Isn’t that great! Isn’t that deep!’ This is stupid," he said.

Besides his fame on the podium, Fiedler has won worldwide notoriety as a fire chaser. He is honorary fire chief of 110 cities in all corners of the globe, including Tokyo, Kyoto and his native Boston.

"I’m never without this," he said, displaying his badge from the Boston Fire Department.

"I’m not a pyromaniac," Fiedler added. "It’s fascination with the speed and gravity of the decisions that have to be made and the fierceness of the battle against the flames."

This is Fiedler’s second visit to Japan. He is here at the invitation of the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra, which he will conduct for a series of nine concerts in major Japanese cities.