Little Boys on Their Own

The chapter traces the musical educations of Domenico Cimarosa, a contemporary of Mozart, in the 1760s and of Henri Busser, a contemporary of Claude Debussy, in the 1880s. Though born into quite different worlds, their experiences as fatherless boys taken in by conservatories were very similar. For both of them, instruction was largely nonverbal. They did not learn from reading about music. They learned by constantly imitating and creating music. That is, in modern terms, they learned predominantly “by ear,” although they also learned to read and write music.