Born in 1901, Finzi studied composition with Farrar in Harrogate and Bairstow in York. Before he was 18, he had seen the deaths of his father, three brothers and a teacher, initiating an early awareness of the fragility of life, a theme often present in his music. Moving to London in 1926 he befriended young composers Ferguson and Rubbra, and met Vaughan Williams, Holst and Bliss . In 1930 he became a tutor at the Royal College of Music, but had to leave to work for the Ministry of War Transport during WWII. Finzi died from the Hodgkinson's disease that had been diagnosed five years earlier in 1956.