Background
Sigi Nissel was born in Munich to a Jewish family from Vienna. His mother died when he was 9. He was taken by his father to Vienna, where his teachers included Max Weissgärber.
Sigi Nissel was born in Munich to a Jewish family from Vienna. His mother died when he was 9. He was taken by his father to Vienna, where his teachers included Max Weissgärber.
Mittelschule Vienna, London University and violin tuition pvtly. with Professor Max Weissgarber, Vienna and Professor Max Rostal, London.
He began playing the violin at the age of 6. Nissel was evacuated from Vienna in 1938 to Great Britain. 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.
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 Béla Bartók and Benjamin Britten (who wrote his third quartet for them). Nissel played the "Payne" Stradivarius of 1731.
Following the death of Schidlof from a heart attack in 1987, the Amadeus Quartet disbanded. Nissel became a teacher of young quartets at the Royal Academy of Music.
Second Violin, Amadeus Quartet 1948-1987.
Married Muriel Nissel in 1957.