Sunday Feature: Educating Isaac

Nicholas Baragwanath explores a forgotten mode of music education used in Naples in the 18th century, which is said to have generated numerous teenage Mozarts. Nicholas recounts how when searching for a creative and fun way to teach his three-year-old son, he discovered a method completely different from the usual routine of practice and graded exams, and based more around craft training, with simple musical games and puzzles. He travels to Naples to uncover the forgotten story of the musicians who were really famous during the 18th century and to find out how they became so skilled in such a short time. He visits an eight-year-old girl in Surrey who has already been trained through the Neapolitan methods and who has composed operas and string quartets. Nicholas investigates what this might mean for modern music education by speaking with educators from the UK, USA, Italy, and Switzerland