One by one the members of the Amadeus Quartet arrived at the North London home of their colleague, Siegmund Nissel, to talk to me about the background and life of the world's most popular string quartet. Conversation flowed with plenty of counterpoint, humour, and very little argument – save over the question as to whether the quartet should play in Berlin on the day of arrival from South America, or take a day's rest and run the risk of feeling more tired as they mentally and physically begin to unwind.

Three of the players, Norbert Brainin (the leader), Siegmund Nissel (second violin), and Peter Schidlof (viola), emigrated to England from Vienna in 1938, and a sober moment occurred in our conversation as they remembered their early days in this country at the beginning of the war when they were interned as 'friendly enemy aliens'. In spite of the hardships, there were compensations, they told me stoically. Not only had they met each other, but also some splendid colleagues such as Hans Redlich and Hans Gál, and there was plenty of time for them to study. Subsequently, all three became pupils of Max Rostal, and it was then that they met the fourth member of their quartet, the English cellist Martin Lovett.

They started to play together in 1946 for the sheer love of the quartet repertoire, but in 1947 they began to work seriously with the idea of giving concerts. 'We made our debut as the Amadeus Quartet at the Wigmore Hall in January 1948,' they told me. 'We were pretty good right from the start, but we needed playing in like a good new piano does.' The quality of playing, of sound and intonation, as exemplified by the Busch and Griller Quartets, was what they aimed for, and they resolved never to compromise on any aspect of performance in their pursuit of musical excellence. After fifteen or twenty years the process of working out musical problems, and of achieving an interpretative rapport takes up less time, they told me. 'Occasionally an argument over some point of interpretation has to be left unresolved during a rehearsal. But, having focused attention on the problem, it sometimes miraculously comes right in the concert of its own accord.'

Audiences have come to associate the Amadeus with the major classics of the quartet literature, and although their repertoire includes a number of contemporary works, Britten, Tippett and Seiber among them, they are seldom called upon by concert promoters to perform them. 'In the early days we did a great deal for the BBC Third Programme and faced the challenge of having to prepare new works every week, so we were able to learn the bulk of our repertoire very fast.'

On disc, the Amadeus have gradually built up a comprehensive discography of the classical quartet repertoire. Their most recent addition, slightly off the Amadeus beaten track, is a record of Tchaikovsky and Verdi Quartets. 'We don't approve of setting out with the express purpose of recording complete editions,' Brainin remarked. 'Each work is a masterpiece in its own right, and performances start to sound like a conveyor belt if the musicians don't apply themselves to each composition individually. Our favourite recording is perhaps the Schubert Quintet in C that we did with William Pleeth (7/66), after giving a public performance of it in Berlin in 1964. The Adagio was one of those miraculous performances that was recorded in one complete take. Currently we are finishing our second recording of the late Beethoven Quartets. We have performed a number of Beethoven cycles in public concerts since our first recording of these quartets, and although our interpretation is not radically different, we feel that our perception has deepened as a result.

'Incidentally, our very first recording was Priaulx Rainier's First Quartet which we did on 78s (1/50). Recording was much more difficult in those days. The nearest to it today, perhaps, is the direct-to-disc process, and quite honestly no quartet can play faultlessly for 25 minutes non-stop and reach the degree of technical perfection expected of recording – unless, of course, attitudes change. After all, we do have historical performances with blemishes.' 

Of the four, Siegmund Nissel has the best head for business matters, and at one time studied the art of bookkeeping. 'Business just gravitated naturally towards him', the others told me, although today most of it is looked after by agents and secretaries. A recent innovation in the Quartet's life has been the employment of all four musicians at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. It is a unique situation that enables the players to be together in one place, yet they teach individually and not as a resident quartet. After two years of combining this with their normal concert schedule, it became clear that one of these commitments would have to be reduced, and since all four are dedicated to the idea of teaching they have decided to cut down on concerts. Nevertheless, their recordings will continue with Deutsche Grammophon. Not long ago DG decided that it was time to celebrate the sale of one million Amadeus records, only to find that they had underestimated the total, which was, in fact, two million! 

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