15 AUGUST 1970, Page 23

Tribal lore

Sir: Denis Brogan (1 August) suggests differ- ent races may have different intellectual equipment and, as an example, declares, 'I cannot think of many or perhaps any abso- lutely first class Jewish artists or composers of music.' That sentence says a great deal about Sir Denis's intellectual equipment, but does very little for his argument. If he cannot think of names like Chagall. Mahler. Men- delcsohn or Schoenberg, perhaps he should look them up in any standard reference work.