It has become almost one of the commonplaces of the historian of Music to contrast the absence of men of Jewish race from the list of distinguished musicians of the past, with their remarkable frequency among the more eminent composers and virtuosi of the present. It is not without justice that this contrast is attributed primarily to the results of the humanitarian sentiments which have arrived at so noble an elevation in this century. It was the declination of prejudice against the ancient people, and the gradual removal of the excessive civil and social disabilities under which they so long had laboured, that led to ready application to the most spiritual of the Arts on the part of a people whose quick sensibility and emotional energy had been cultivated during long consecutive centuries of intimacy with, and regard for, every form of literary production. Yet it is remarkable that the Jew, with all his adaptiveness, rose to pre-eminence in music sooner and more readily than in any other art. And if we turn from the composers of Hebrew origin, and concentrate our attention rather on the Israelite executants to be found in every orchestra, and on every concert-platform, we speedily are prompted to ask why the number of Jewish musicians of every grade not merely far exceeds the trifling numerical proportion which their race bears to the rest of the population, but is out of all comparison with the number and the corresponding proportion of Jewish painters, sculptors, architects, or, generally, followers of any art other than music.