Martí was born as Bernabé Martínez Remacha,[1] the sixth and last child of his family,[2] in Villarroya de la Sierra in the Province of Zaragoza, Aragon.

His first critical success came with Manuel de Falla's La vida breve in Granada in 1958, followed by Salome in Düsseldorf under Alberto Erede.

He later appeared in France, Germany, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Lima, Caracas and Santiago de Chile, in operas such as Carmen, Werther and Manon Lescaut.

They had met earlier that year when on short notice he replaced an ailing tenor for performances of Madama Butterfly in Corunna.

In 1972 he had to abandon a performance in Paris due to problems with his voice, which was subsequently identified as lung disease.