She was again in her element, generously sharing her ideas, resolutely pursuing innovative and powerful ideas about form, space and function, true to what she identified as her "ideals of design: simplicity, good proportion and a peaceful background to people's lives".Rose Elisabeth Benjamin, architect: born London 7 December 1908; married 1937 Gunter Nagelschmidt (died 1981; two daughters); died London 29 March 1999.. WILLIAM PLEETH was one of the last of the great teachers whose own roots sprung from the grand traditions of 19th-century cello-playing. Throughout his career he was one of the most beloved and sought-after cello teachers in the world, and in his latter years his pupils would travel any distance to have lessons or attend master classes. In his early days he also enjoyed an international reputation as soloist and chamber musician extraordinaire. Pleeth was born in 1916 in London into a Polish emigre family from Warsaw, several generations of which had been professional musicians. At the age of seven he heard the cello being played by a cafe musician who proceeded to give him some lessons. After a short time his obvious talent made it clear he should have some serious tuition and he attended the London Academy, and at 10 entered the London Cello School as a pupil of Herbert Walenn. When he was 13 Pleeth won a scholarship to go to Leipzig to study with the great Julius Klengel at the Conservatoire, the youngest person ever to be admitted.

Undaunted, he managed to keep up with the older students and in two years had learnt all the Bach Solo Suites, all the Piatti Caprices and 32 concertos, 24 of which he knew from memory.Pleeth remained grateful to Klengel his entire life. He told me:He was a wonderful teacher because he allowed you to be yourself He hated it if someone copied him. He wanted us to develop our own musicality - and we did, and we're all different after all. Emanuel Feuermann and Gregor Piatigorsky were both Klengel pupils and they were totally different in their style of playing. Klengel himself was a very simple, unsophisticated man whose integrity was unquestionable. He was always honest and I loved him for it.Pleeth was 15 when he performed the Dvork Concerto at his first concert at the Conservatoire and shortly after made his debut at the Gewandhaus playing the Haydn D major concerto. The German press were enthusiastic and predicted a bright future; but on his return to London music was at a low ebb and foreign musicians were much preferred - with the result that many British artists added a "vitch" or a "ski" to their names.

Pleeth, whose family had taken British citizenship and anglicised their name, refused to revert to the Polish form to satisfy what he called inverted snobbery.When he was 17 Pleeth gave some broadcasts from the BBC and a debut recital at the old Aeolian Hall in Bond Street, which brought him his first important orchestral engagement playing the Dvork Concerto with the City of Birmingham Orchestra under Leslie Heward, for the magnificent fee of two guineas. From this point his career gained momentum and in 1940 he was engaged for his first solo broadcast playing the Schumann Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Sir Adrian Boult.Pleeth's career was then interrupted by five years of army service, but this also had its compensations. Also serving in the same regiment was the composer Edmund Rubbra and they became lifelong friends. Rubbra dedicated his Sonata for Cello and Piano to Pleeth and his wife, the pianist Margaret Good, whom he married in 1942 Rubbra's Soliloquy for Cello was also written for him. Other composers who later wrote for him included Franz Reizenstein, Gordon Jacob, Mtys Seiber and Benjamin Frankel.After the war Pleeth's solo career and his recitals with Margaret Good reached international status. He had been a member of the Blech String Quartet from 1936 to 1941 and in the early Fifties he formed the original Allegri String Quartet with Eli Goren and James Barton, violins, and Patrick Ireland on viola. He finally decided that, for him, chamber music was the most satisfying form of music-making.