Cool thread! I've recently heard these guys in concert and found them incredible.They're called Vox Luminis, and they mostly play German Baroque, and other stuff sometimes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moYuYgxdHt0&list=PLxHGW4bjuSCRqiJCb1E_-i4iYgBx71xX6&index=6

Thanks to the OP for posting Bach's concerto for violin and oboe!

Not exactly baroque per se, but check out this madness from the Polish "Romanian Baroque"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpeXKIMflLI

Enjoy :D

These dudes loved baroque https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLpTUw0haKc
yeah I know it's not real baroque *hides*

Anyway, I've encountered a certain kind of hate towards baroque style around these parts, the czech republic, claiming that it's too "overdone" and "ugly" and whatnot. It's not universal, at least I hope not, but some people are prejudiced against it for some reason. I can't quite understand it and my guess would be that they're not educated enough concerning this subject.
Have you encountered something like that elsewhere in the world?

Not a fan of Obama's, so I'll just say one of these days it would be nice to have a President and Congress that are for the people and not in it for their own greed.

Do you listen toAncientFM? Amazing online radio station playing a wonderful mix of medieval and renaissance era music, as well as antiquarian and early classical.

I listen to a lot of classical music by radio on my drive to and from work; besides NPR it's the only radio station I will still listen to.

I just thought I'd share a personal favorite,Claudio Monteverde from the early baroque


Edit: I wonder how many people in this thread also listen to extreme metal, as the two styles overlap more than one would think:).

Didn´t know about that online radio, I´ll bookmark it.
I´m not versed in the ways of music categorizing so I don´t even know what extreme metal is. I´m not really an avid music listener, though and I dislike anything that sounds like noise :P if that makes any sense, usually the kind of music that is accompanied by a lot of yelling. Having said that I do listen to anything, if it sounds good to me. Just like with gaming :P

Thanks, good stuff!

Thanks a lot really great ones - reminded me of a band seen live some while ago:

Warning: not perfectly fitting in here but they do half exact reproducing music from the middle age
(research in original music scripts of the time and also performing inclusive the old instruments) and other half pagan folk - all of them are promoted musicians and i was live quite impressed of them:

on CD they have some of the songs with synthy but live and unplugged it was amazing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkvxK630kOQ
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA32dmY57_M

Actually, I have yet to play that one... :/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2j-frfK-yg
This is a classic.

What's with the jerks downrepping people in here?

I'm not massively into baroque really, its too emotionally void and imperial, pompous if you know what I mean. My favourite classical era is the romantic and my favourite artist being Rachmaninov. So much more dynamics and soul but with all the technicality too.

The technology wasn't there in some respects for western music to be dynamically varied. For example the harpsichord was mechanically plucked so the note was always the same so no dynamics. And on the instruments with the capability for dynamics in the string section they would just blast out or run around arpeggios robotically kinda like some metal (80's hair metal like yngwie malmsteen for example, phenomenally skilled guitarist but terrible terrible music) Hindi classical music (with its quarter tones hit on the "meand" etc) on the other hand or classical chinese music (sitars and gu qin respectively) etc are a lot more appealing to me from that period of time :).

Of course music is highly subjective and that is the beauty of it, these are just my humble opinions, I'm not trying to say I am right or yngwie is crap for example. If it makes you happy then it is good to you and that is what matters :) .Things would be boring if everyone was into the same shizz.

Awesome Chinese classical standard called ambush from ten sides, only playable generally by top end musicians and virtuosos. This is played on a pipa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLmXOEUXsCw

Also if you haven't seen kung fu hustle get it watched, aside from it being a properly mint film it has a genious soundtrack check this scene featuring the Gu Qin (i know its mimed but it it cinema :P)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IjA8U9MCL4

This is one of my favourite artists of all time Venetian Snares, he is normally drill n bass/breakcore, really hard heavily syncopated ingeniously composed electronic music usually in compound time (7/8) but this piece he takes a break from that and makes a medieval sounding track which I love :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB5V6sblUDA

And finally Rachmaninov prelude in g minor. Ridiculously powerful piece, love blasting this out loud through my monitors when nobody's in the house :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9idfQVkqKyw

There could be some bad facts here as I am no expert on classical or world music I just like the stuff, so feel free to correct me if needed :)

edit : oh and on the radio station mentioning the only good ones where I am are Oldham community radio (you get old jazz music and if your lucky sometimes gypsy jazz and Indian classical) and classic FM. All other stations are dog turd :( Generally have to bluetooth tunes from my phone when I'm working in the van