Edith Picht-Axenfeld was born in Freiburg im Breisgau on 1 January 1914, began her concert career in 1935, and took sixth prize at the 1937 Chopin Competition — a career then partly silenced by the Nazi era on account of her family’s Jewish background. After the war she played across continents, recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Philips and Erato, and taught at Freiburg; she died in Hinterzarten on 19 April 2001.

Picht-Axenfeld joined the pianist’s and the harpsichordist’s crafts in one musician: her Bach on both instruments, her Chopin études for RCA, and her decades of chamber partnerships — notably with Aurèle Nicolet — made her a musicians’ musician. Her recordings preserve a German school of unforced polyphonic clarity that this catalogue can now set beside its Russian and French counterparts.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_Picht-Axenfeld
• https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q70011