Ah, the culture wars. Back in 2020, Philip Ewell, an associate professor of music theory at City University of New York, delivered himself of this sibylline pronouncement: “To state that Beethoven was any more than, say, above average as a composer is to state that you know all music written on planet earth 200 years ago when Beethoven was active as a composer, which no one does. Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years, and we have been told by whiteness and maleness that his greatness has nothing to do with whiteness and maleness, in race-neutral and gender-neutral fashion.” Now, at the Kennedy Center, Gianandrea Noseda and the National Symphony present a four-program series in which the guy who is no more than above average goes toe to toe with two American Masters: the D.C. native George Walker, first Black winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music, and George Grant Still, a leading voice in the Harlem Renaissance. Who’s to say who stacks up how? For the record, Ewell has issues with the notion of “masters,” too. —Matthew Gurewitsch