For various reasons, Higginson declined to do so. Patriotic demonstrations at concerts had become routine, and Henry Lee Higginson, the patrician founder and chief executive of the Boston Symphony, was asked to include “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the program. In October of that year, Muck and the Boston Symphony gave a concert in Providence, Rhode Island. But the atmosphere changed markedly after the United States declared war on Germany, in April, 1917. He was a mainstay of the Bayreuth Festival, presiding over summertime performances of Wagner’s “ Parsifal.” His exalted status in German music matched prevalent tastes in Boston, a city with a considerable German-speaking community. Muck, an elegant figure with a coolly disciplined podium style, had arrived in Boston in 1906, having long led the Berlin Court Opera.

Burrage relates in her new book, “ The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America,” a brouhaha over the anthem led to the public shaming and eventual arrest of one of the world’s leading conductors. Yet nothing in the tangled history of “The Star-Spangled Banner” quite compares to a 1917 incident involving Karl Muck, the music director of the Boston Symphony. During the Vietnam War, Jimi Hendrix twisted the tune into a dissonant wail. At the 1968 Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos responded to the anthem by raising gloved fists in a Black Power salute. The National Football League shunned the San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick after he took a knee during the singing of the national anthem at games.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” has long been a focal point of political protest and recrimination.

Tails of histera