Detecting distinctions between the styles of classical music (e.g. Baroque and Romantic) is often viewed as the privilege of musicians. However, this elite perspective underestimates the abilities of non-musicians. We report that Western musicians and non-musicians, and non-Westerners (i.e. Chinese participants) rated pairs of excerpts presented auditorily as more similar as their compositional styles were closer in history. Moreover, the styles were considered by all participants as more different when presented in historical order, the older style preceding the more recent style (e.g. Baroque followed by Romantic), than the reverse (e.g. Romantic followed by Baroque). This historical distance effect appears related to rhythm (or temporal variability).