Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G major BWV 1048

“The aim of this combined scholarly and practical edition of the Brandenburg Concertos is to offer a state of the art performance material of these standard works of Baroque music literature, which satisfies the practical needs of performing artists. These new editions were based on surviving autographic source material - some of which, for the Fifth Concerto for example, has been taken into account for the first time - and the 'Neue Bach-Ausgabe' (NBA). Moreover, they also make use of relevant 18th-century theoretical writings for editorial additions and observations on performance practice.”

(from the joint preface to the “Six Brandenburg Concertos” by the Bach scholars Werner Felix, Winfried Hoffmann and Armin Schneiderheinze)

Instead of a "slow movement", the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 has nothing but two chords. Bach, like Handel in his organ concertos, most likely wanted the solo instruments to insert an improvisation here. But what is easy for the proficient organ soloist in Handel's music turns out to be impossible for the nine solo parts in Bach's piece. Emil Platen's solution "offers a loosely structured elaboration that is placed before the two chords notated by Bach and that uses all of the string instruments. It draws its inspiration from stylistic elements of the concerto, without creating the impression of being an autonomous movement."