João Carlos Martins / Bach
Vol. 3
The Six Partitas

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digital
LAB 7006

Labor Records is proud to announce the digital release of The Six Partitas, the third 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.

When Martins prepares a Bach piece, he learns about what was happening in the composer’s life at the time it was written. “I feel I must speak with him as if I am speaking with a friend. When I play, Bach and I are co-creators of the music.” He also formulates the overall interpretive approach he wants to use. With the Partitas he asserts that “the first one shows Bach in the pastoral sense – Bach as the shepherd.
The second shows us the vigorous side of Bach.
In the third, we hear his heartbeat.
The fourth shows us the dramatic and Romantic Bach.
The fifth is Bach the virtuoso.
And the sixth is Bach the mystic.
Regardless of which side of Bach Martins chooses to illuminate, he always reveals him as the prophet of almost every major musical style to follow, from Chopin to Rachmaninoff to Wagner to jazz.

REVIEWS

…the clearest, most articulate and vital keyboard playing you have ever heard.
– Stereo Review

Martins molds phrases like a vocalist – and lets the music truly breathe. His touches of rubato and dynamic shading might be far-removed from “authentic” performing practice, but they are downright delicious.
Even people who can stomach the idea of playing Bach’s keyboard music on a modern Steinway, instead of a harpsichord, may have a fit when they hear just how pianistic Martins’s approach is. Sometimes he produces an almost Schumannesque drama. Other times, he builds up so much intensity and tone color that you’d swear that you are hearing a transcription by Busoni.
And Matins’s performance of the Praeambulum, from Partita #5 is pyrotechnic feat of Beethovian proportions. It is literally breathtaking!
- NPR / Performance Today

There is another dimension in which Martins ecliplses (Glenn) Gould: his total commitment to extracting from Bach s depth of emotion that is nothing short of
overwhelming. Some audiences, conductors, and critics love his approach. Others hate it, No one is bored. João Carlos Martins is a multi-dimensional artist with extraordinary imagination and fire.
– On the Air Magazine