From harmony of the spheres to national anthem: Reflections on musical heritage

Western classical music was long distinctive among the arts for its universality and catholicity. From Greek antiquity on, music uniquely reflected Orphic, mystic, celestial feeling, And unlike painting, architecture, or literature, the standard musical canon came to be breathtakingly inclusive over time as well as space. Yet in recent centuries music has increasingly celebrated national patriotism and period particularism. This essay traces the histories of these antithetical expressive urges, the one universalistic, transcendental, atemporal, the other chauvinist, parochial, historicist.