Work: Platée: Orchestral Suite

Two sparkling performances by the Oslo Philharmonic and Harry Bicket of dance suites from Rameau's Platée and Les Boréades framed at times brilliant singing from countertenor David Hansen.

Bach's Brandenburg concerto No. 3 (BWV 1048) doesn't have a slow movement. In the place where you would normally expect to find one, what's written out is just two chords. And in most modern performances, those chords get a perfunctory embellishment, a quick bit of a cadenza, and on we go. That's the shape in which the piece now sits in the classical canon, so nobody expects more than that.