Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten started composing music at the age of five although he had no one to help him. When he was ten years old he took part in an amateur music festival in Norwich.  A composer called Frank Bridge heard him and was so impressed that he offered to teach him composition.  He helped Britten to compose using proper musical techniques.  Britten started to get to know music by a lot of important modern composers including Schoenberg and Bartók.  In 1930 he went to the Royal College of Music.  He had excellent piano teachers but he did not learn much from his composition teacher John Ireland and most of the music he wrote was never performed.  Britten was more interested in music from abroad than in English music.  In 1934 he heard the opera Wozzeck by Alban Berg.  He wanted to go to Austria to study with Berg but he was not allowed to.  Meanwhile, some of his first proper compositions started to be performed.  He wrote some music for movies that were being made by the General Post Office, including one about a train delivering mail.  The music describes the rhythm of the train rushing along.