Born Munich, January 3, 1922.
Died London, May 21, 2008, aged 86.
The second violin and the organiser of the renowned Amadeus Quartet, Siegmund Nissel is the third member now to be lost from the unique continental refugee ensemble.
The quartet came to an end in 1987 with the death of violist Peter Schidlof. Its leader, violinist Norbert Brainin, died in 2005. Both were born in Vienna.
Budapest-born violinist Suzanne Rozsa, who introduced the three friends to a London cellist, Martin Lovett, born in Stoke Newington — then a suburban destination for aspiring East End Jews — also died in 2005.
She brought Martin Lovett into the Continental circle and married him in 1950. Now the quartet’s last survivor, Lovett spoke of the loss of his “brothers”.
When “Sigi” Nissel lost his mother at nine, his father took him to his own birthplace, Vienna, where Sigi continued his musical lessons and promise. He toured Germany with his father at the age of 12 and saw the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games.
In 1938 he came to London on a Kindertransport and was helped to settle by Bloomsbury House, the Central Office for Jewish Refugees.
He desperately tried to bring his father over and prevailed on a family in Twickenham, Middlesex, complete strangers, to put up the guarantee money to secure his father’s entry. In 1940, Sigi was interned at Onchan camp on the Isle of Man.
There he met Peter Schidlof and Norbert Brainin, two young Jewish music students in a similar plight, and they became firm friends.
The camp only lasted for a year but Sigi got out first because fellow-internees wrote on his behalf to the noted pianist, Dame Myra Hess, and violin teacher, Max Rostal, who later taught them all.
However, the music students all had to do war work as day jobs. Sigi made gun metal in the East End. They started making a name as a trio at refugee musical evenings.
After the war, when they were joined by Martin Lovett, they took the decision to concentrate on chamber music. Sigi came up with the name Amadeus, Mozart’s middle name, which led to their nickname of the Wolf Gang.
Their talent was so remarkable that they were brought to teach at Dartington Hall Music Arts Centre in Devon by its director, Imogen Holst, daughter of composer Gustav Holst. She also sponsored their first concert at London’s Wigmore Hall in January 1948. It was a sell-out.
The quartet never looked back. The JC’s music critic, Arthur Jacobs, praised the players for their fine musicianship, invigorating zest, devotion and skill.
They were honoured by Britain, with OBE appointments for all in 1970, as well as by the German Federal Republic, Austria and the record industry.
Their insistence on tackling scores, classical or modern, as if from scratch, articulating every phrase and bringing freshness to each performance, had its counterpart in their personal lives.
They were each very different characters and tried not to live on top of each other, especially when travelling.
Despite bouts of ill health, Sigi was the practical one, sorting out engagements, venues, fees, tax payments and travel arrangements for players and instruments — sometimes one would turn up without the other.
Travel meant sacrificing family life. Sigi’s wife, statistician Muriel Griffiths, whom he married in 1957, looked after their daughter for four months until he returned from touring to see her for the first time.
Her book, Married to the Amadeus (1998), describes her culture shock as a middle-class Englishwoman at marrying into a continental Jewish family.
After Peter Shidlof’s death, the others continued a short while as the Amadeus Trio but eventually settled into teaching and training future chamber music players. Sigi was professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Musikhochschule in Cologne.
He had been ill for some time and is survived by his wife, daughter and son.
