Soon she and her sister, who played the flute, were winning local music competitions. Du Pré’s main teacher, from 1955 to 1961, both privately and at the Guildhall School of Music in London, was the famous cellist William Pleeth. She took part in a masterclass with Pablo Casals in Zermatt, Switzerland in 1960, and had some lessons with Paul Tortelier in Paris in 1962, and with Mstislav Rostropovich in Russia in 1966. Rostropovich said that she was the only young cellist who could play better than he could.