In her 1968 version of Brandenburg 3, Wendy Carlos used those two chords (which she first calls a Phrygian cadence and then later a plagal cadence - I don‘t know what either of those means without looking them up) as an excuse to show off what the Moog synthesizer could do in a cadenza loosely based on the Chromatic Fantasy (BWV 903). But by 1979 she felt it inappropriate and replaced it with something shorter.

Of the other recordings I have, apart from the Consort of London, mentioned above (disappointingly, the trumpet - or whatever they’re using - in the 2nd concerto plays an octave lower than what I’m used to hearing), the Kammerorchester CPE Bach has a 24-second cadenza for violin. (The six concertos are mixed up and spread over two CDs, interspersed with other Bach works, and they don’t deign to number them 1 to 6 like everyone else but just give the BWV numbers. There might be scholarly reasons for doing that but I just find it an unnecessary irritation.)

But my favourite is the one that appeared on the old Turnabout LPs - the Wurttemburg Chamber Orchestra, with a cadenza for harpsichord. The sleeve notes say that the chords are a punctuation mark, and it would be absurd to play them just as written. They suggest that Bach intended the performers to improvise on the spot and perhaps that’s what the burst on the harpsichord is. I have never been able to identify it. Can anyone out there help?

Here's the page in question from the autograph manuscript of Brandenburg 3. Hope it's of some help. I've scanned it from an old and much-prized two-tone facsimile. IIRC, there's a more recent facsimile, though whether it's more than two-tone I don't know. Quite pricey, I believe. It's one of Bach's most beautiful manuscripts, a lovely presentation copy.

Sorry had to crop off a bit from the right-hand side of the page, but the book doesn't quite fit on my scanner. 

Wow. Thanks, Opi. Well, no discernible difference between the thickness of the two pairs of double barlines there, then.

Er, I thought BWV 1048 was Brandenburg 3? 

Since everything after Baz's reply #9 has concerned the 'slow movement' (or lack thereof ) in Brandenburg 3 rather than the heading under which we were actually posting I've split the topic accordingly. Let me know if there are any objections.

Indeed!!!

Nor do the two chords 'appear in the MS as though they were actually part of the first movement'. So much for the Bach-Gesellschaft edition.

I've been finding this discussion extraordinarily interesting, but haven't joined in myself as it's not really 'my area'. Just a comment on cadences, though: it's a Phrygian cadence. I don't know where W. Carlos got his plagal cadence from, but it's nothing like one. Incidentally, Baz made what I presume was a typo earlier in the week in describing the first chord as a 6/4 chord when it's in fact a 6/3. I'd also quibble with his description of there being two chords 'both in completely the wrong key', since a chord can't be in a key: the two chords together prepare a key, but considered individually they are not 'in' anything, and indeed even as a cadence they don't ever land in E minor. All of which leads me to feel that Dishy's point (about the Haydn quartet) is probably relevant. Beyond which, I like Baz's latest conclusion, viz.: 'The piece indeed does - however unusual - seem like an incipiently monotonal "2-movement" conception, though one where the composer's instinct was still for something "slow" (however short) and "relative-minor-ish" to be placed between these two movements,' though with the caveat that the MS doesn't really show those two chords as joined to the first movement and separated from the second. Can't we just say they're a little insertion to counterbalance what would otherwise be a very un-Bachian monotonality?

And yes, re ornamenting them: Is anyone suggesting otherwise? It's just a question of how much, surely. Inserting a whole slow movement seems unjustifiable, unless some major historical evidence were turned up about notational conventions implying such a practice. But decorating the chords with figuration sounds normal enough to me.

While t_i_n was generous enough to identify the 'typo', I must in all conscience admit that it was an actual error. I now remember clearly writing "6/4" (even after a preview check), even though the chord itself was clear enough to me (and should have been described as a 6/3).

We may, though, have a slight (but I think highly marginal) difference of opinion about the tonality of the two chords. To my ears (and intellect), I hear them as a clear modulation to the relative minor, ending with a half-close cadence. (The last chord of movt 1 is to me heard as the tonic; then the 6/3 on A minor I hear as a first-inversion supertonic; as it is held, the question then arises "is this supertonic a pivotal chord that will become a new subdominant (perhaps in the relative minor)?"; then as it moves to the B-major chord the answer (to me) is "Yes - it did become a subdominant, now moving to the dominant of the relative minor and providing a classic half-close cadence".)

But different people hear such things in differing ways - that is their magic - and one person's description of events is no more worthy than another's.

It was really kind of opilec to provide the graphic of Bach's original - and I am inspired to seek it out and buy a copy!

Baz