Few ensembles are as difficult to write about as the incomparable Tallis Scholars. Inevitably, you just string together an array of superlatives and hope that other reviewers haven't gushed about the same attributes using the same words in precisely the same order. The ensemble's recording of the Christmas Mass and the antiphon Ave Dei patris filia marks both its fourth recording of works by Renaissance master Thomas Tallis and one of Gimell's last albums to be made during an unhappy affiliation with Universal Classics. (The label has since reverted to independent status, distributed in the United States by Harmonia Mundi.) As has been the case with other Tallis Scholars projects, the singers have rediscovered missing manuscripts and have put together the first modern performance editions of both of these works. Their complete mastery of their chosen subject, combining keen scholarship and transcendent beauty, makes this a radiant recording. The clarity and luminescent tone that conductor Peter Phillips achieves with his singers are simply superb. The recording, made at their frequent locale of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Norfolk, is a faithful one–but don't miss any opportunity to hear them live.

Stile Antico's 2015 release on Harmonia Mundi, A Wondrous Mystery, is a sublime collection of Renaissance choral music for Christmas, presented in a pleasant mix of familiar German carols and a mass, with tracks interspersed for the sake of variety. This makes sense in consideration of the group's broad audience, which may know such popular hymns as Michael Praetorius' Ein Kind geborn in Bethlehem and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen, or Johannes Eccard's Übers Gebirg Maria geht and Vom Himmel hoch, yet be somewhat at a loss with the motet and Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis by Jacobus Clemens non Papa, a composer beloved by early music specialists but not exactly a household name for lay listeners. However, the a cappella performances are consistently beautiful and soothing throughout, and the quietly joyous mood of the music fits the album's title perfectly. The 12-voice choir's blend is well-balanced and transparent, and the ambience of All Hallow's Church, Gospel Oak, London gives an ideal resonance for the group's small size and close miking.

Some ten years probably separates the composition of the Missa in honorem Beatissimae Virginis Mariae (c. 1768) from the Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo (c 1777–8). Because of the virtuoso role of the organ in each work the former has become known as the ''Great Organ Mass'' and the latter as the ''Little Organ Mass''. 'Great' and 'Little' reflect both the size of the orchestras and the scale of each work. Thus the earlier of the two Masses is on an altogether grander scale than the later one. It is scored for a four-part chorus, four soloists (SATB), strings, cors anglais, horns, bassoon and obbligato organ, and in this performance additional trumpet and trombone parts found in one of the work's sources, are included as well. Doubtfully authentic timpani parts are also present.

When one approaches the music of the eighteenth century that was performed at the Spanish court of the Palacio de la Zarzuela (which in shortened from then gave the whole “zarzuela” genre its name), whether by composers born in Spain or by foreigners who had settled there, the first impression is one of surprise. For here we find ourselves confronted with magnificent music that follows Italianate models, like all works of the period, yet contributes original elements specific to the country that gave it birth: above all the theatrical style, the inclusion of characteristic rhythms, and the richness of the texts, taken from great writers of the time.

The Baroque dream team of Rachel Podger and Kristian Bezuidenhout interpret the astonishing music of C.P.E. Bach’s Violin Sonatas in C Minor, B Minor, D Major and G Minor. The two early sonatas here from the 1730s resemble the older style of his father. Listening to these works, you can imagine J.S. Bach glancing over Emanuel's shoulders while he wrote them as a teenager at home in Leipzig. The later sonatas, written 30 to 50 years later, reveal an emancipated composer whose developed musical language embodies the 'Empfindsamer Stil', the directly emotional and rhetorical style characteristic of northern-german music of the time.

This is one of those few "absolutely perfect" works of art or nature one comes across in one's liftime. It's like Michelangelo's "David" or the best moonrise you've ever seen over a desert mountain. It's shocking, it's so good. It will leave you overwhelmed. I've never heard any other recording of Chopin come anywhere close to being as magic as this. Anyone who can do this kind of sorcery, if only once, should be showered with garlands and their name should be praised for centuries.

A slightly curious compilation (two Russian performances dating from 1962, one English from 1976) but an attractive one, and very good value. I had not heard the Gabrieli's Tchaikovsky before, and liked it a great deal: properly chamber-scale, in colour as well as tone of voice, and nice underlining of the lyricism in even Tchaikovsky's most exuberant pages.

In 1823 Johann Georg Stauffer invented the arpeggione, a freak instrument, a hybrid of 'cello and guitar, with strings tuned in fourths. Schubert invested such attractive melodies in this queer contraption, he must have believed in its future. The melodies that float throughout the "Sonata for Arpeggione", are indeed attractive to say the least. The first point that strikes one in this performance is the clarity that cellist Mischa Maisky maintains.

After three decades of Carmen in opéra comique-style, each one offering its own brand of authenticity, here we are back in the 19th century with the old grand opera version, with the Guiraud recitatives, tacked on after Bizet’s death. This was the way Carmen was usually performed until the 1950s, when producers and scholars started to reconsider the original.

This disc is the reason that recordings exist: to preserve great performances of great music in transparent sound. This April 2003 recording made in Flagey Hall in Brussels of performances by cellist Mischa Maisky and pianist Martha Argerich is certainly among the best performances ever made of this repertoire. Indeed, only the Rostropovich and Shostakovich performances can compare with them and, even there, it is arguable that Maisky and Argerich's are equally convincing.

When Bishop played guitar with Paul Butterfield in the 1960s he fancied himself a countrified hippie named Pig Boy Cranshaw. His sense of humor remains intact decades later, evidenced on a relaxed blues-oriented rock program shot through with a smart sort of bumpkin levity. He never could sing (it was Mickey Thomas on his 1970s smash "Fooled Around and Fell in Love"), but his guitar rides roughshod over those of many a better-known blues artist.

ARCHITECTURE OF THE ABSURD is a Progressive Rock band. The same kind of rock that motivated thousands of avid brains to join a musical movement that enclosed everything. That undefined rock, with no boundaries or limits. That rock that laughed at the world and at itself, a delicious caricature of music. ARCHITECTURE OF THE ABSURD gathers influences from bands like Van Der Graaf Generator, Gentle Giant or King Crimson. It filters them through a Mr. Bungle strainer and performs in an imaginary Cirque Du Soleil. The result can’t be more unpredictable. Nothing is what it seems and nothing looks like nothing.