Customer Reviews

Well Tempered Clavier - Book 2

5 star:		(1)
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This is Bach with emotion. Martins delivers great feeling and expression, with tremendous technique and incredible timing. To me, Martins' legato style is more enjoyable over the long run than Glenn Gould's staccato technique on this same material. Martins' treatment may be too radical for those demanding authenticity, but you cannot go wrong with this CD for sheer emotional impact.

I agree with Mr. Gregory N Brylski's (first reviewer of the record on this page) review so far the first recording of the Well Tempered Clavier (WTC) by Martins is concerned (Sync, but also released by "The Classics Record Library" as a 7LP-Set in 1965): The 1965 version is quite inventive, sounds somehow fresher than the 1983 version. It is indeed very sad that this older version hasn't been released on CD yet.

But the 1983 version on Concord has its qualities. In my knowledge, Martins 1983 is one of the rare recordings of the WTC to have such a precise and clear mid-register. Martins did succeed (and few pianists did) in bringing the middle-voice to clarity. This brings a very rich and clear text, specially in the fugues.

I bought this CD set because I fell in love with Martins recording of the same on the In Sync label years ago. Unfortunately, the Concord recordings are much more conservative, lacking in the expressive, artistic brilliance of the In Sync recordings. This recording seems to make me a little depressed because the colour is just not there. I wish the In Sync recording would be reissued - it's brilliant.

Why Martins embarked on his Bach recording quest is to many a mystery. Where Joao can be brilliant on Lizt, he fails miserably with Bach. He is trying to add more dynamics Bach's keyboard works, but it merely makes things nervous and garbles the polyphony - although one would think the effect would be the opposite. I cannot recommend any of Martin's Bach works, although he plays the Concerti reasonably well as it matches more his style of playing. Glenn Gould, Janos Janda, and Andras Schiff are much better choices for the Well-Tempered, as well as overall.