Siegmund Nissel

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Siegmund Nissel (January 3, 1922 – May 21, 2008) was an Austrian-born British violinist who played second violin in the celebrated Amadeus Quartet and served as its administrator.

Siegmund (Sigi) Nissel was born in Munich to a Jewish family from Vienna. He began playing the violin at the age of 6. His mother died when he was 9. He was taken by his father to Vienna, where his teachers included Max Weissgärber. Nissel was evacuated from Vienna in 1938 to Great Britain.

During World War II Nissel was interned as a "friendly enemy alien" on the Isle of Man where he met the violist Peter Schidlof and later the violinist Norbert Brainin. With the British cellist, Martin Lovett, they would form the Amadeus Quartet.

The Amadeus Quartet, informally known as the Wolf Gang, gave its first concert in London in 1948. Known for its sophisticated style, seamless ensemble playing and sensitive interpretation, the Amadeus Quartet made some 200 recordings, among them the complete quartets of Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart and works by 20th-century composers such as Bela Bartók and Benjamin Britten (who wrote his third quartet for them).

Played the "Payne" Stradivarius of 1731.

Following the death of Schidlof from a heart attack in 1987, the Amadeus Quartet disbanded. Nissel became a distinguished teacher of young quartets at the Royal Academy of Music.

[edit] Further reading

Muriel Nissel, Married to the Amadeus: Life with a String Quartet, [ISBN 1-900357-12-7], Giles de la Mare Publishers Limited, 1998 (a memoir of her "marriage" to the Amadeus by Nissel's wife)