While scholars have tended to position overtly patriotic works firmly on the lower registers of American cultural hierarchies, the debates surrounding German conductor Karl Mucks reluctance to conduct "The Star-Spangled Banner" with the Boston Symphony Orchestra during World War I serve as a lens into the complex, shifting cultural position that patriotic music actually occupies. Competing opinions on whether Muck should conduct "The Star-Spangled Banner" placed patriotism alternately below, above, and on the same hierarchical plane as art. Moreover, these debates activated a preexisting discourse on the songs difficulty level, allowing "The Star-Spangled Banner" to operate simultaneously as a popular work to be sung by all Americans and a sophisticated composition to be studied by skilled performers.