João Carlos Martins / Bach
Vol. 2
The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2

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digital
LAB 7002

Labor Records is proud to announce the digital release of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, the second installment of The Complete Keyboard Works of J.S. Bach, a collection comprising 15 volumes/19 CDs.
This monumental edition features the celebrated Brazilian pianist
João Carlos Martins, a legend among Bachophiles.

Much has been made of the spiritual side of Johann Sebastian Bach. History would have him virtually a patron saint of Protestant church musicians, and his music, more than any other composer’s, is treated as a religion in itself.
João Carlos Martins worships a different Bach–a humanist, almost neo-Romantic composer who speaks through the modern piano in forceful, dynamic and human terms.

REVIEWS

Inner voices are projected with wonderful clarity, especially in the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II of which offers some of his most fascinating insights: an exquisitely nuanced D major Fugue and a poignantly melancholy F minor Prelude among them.
– BBC Music Magazine

Martins brings to this music a knowledge and devotion as impressive as his skill. He is a master of subtly varied keyboard sounds, and he uses this mastery most impressively in the “Well-Tempered Clavier” to impart a distinctive quality to each of the 48 preludes and fugues.
– The Washington Post

Martins’s interpretation cannot be pegged as merely Romantic, for it seems to draw on every era, evoking Chopin, or Rachmaninoff as often as Scarlatti or jazz. His tempos are infinitely malleable; he creeps where you would expect him to race and flies where you would expect him to crawl. He is nearly inaudible or unbearably loud. He adds octaves in the bass and pedal heavily. And he has one of the most varied touches I’ve ever heard, ranging from disembodied ethereality to earthy vulgarity. After listening to Martin’s Bach, you may well discover that the composer has been reborn afresh – and in ways you could have never have imagined.
– K. Robert Schwarz / Classic CD