In 1941, he received a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Music, London, studying with Frank Merrick, Gordon Jacob and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and he obtained his ARCM.
From 1945, he started on a career as an accompanist, chamber musician and teacher, and was associated in concerts and on disc with many distinguished singers and instrumentalists, including Dame Janet Baker, Elisabeth Söderström, Max Rostal and Pierre Fournier.
[2] Hamburger worked as coach for the English Chamber Group, preparing for the television performance of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw and touring with the company.
Hamburger taught singers and accompanists at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London, and gave masterclasses and annual seminars in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Sweden and Finland.
He was a Fellow of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy, London, and was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art in 1991,[3] which was upgraded to 1st class in 2000.