Even by the composer's exalted standards, the Haydn String Quartets Op 64 are six of his finest, ranking among the glories of the Enlightenment. And, as throughout their series, these performances from The London Haydn Quartet bring out all the music's considerable wit, wisdom and humanity. As if this weren't enticement enough, their album is another two-for-the-price-of-one offering, all of which makes November's Record of the Month one not to be missed. An exorbitancy of Delight is promised by Mahan Esfahani in The Passinge mesures. This is a richly complex programme of Tudor and Stuart keyboard music from the age's leading and lesser lights, which this most extraordinary of harpsichordists confesses means as much to him as anything in his repertoire.

Tenor Allan Clayton, in his first solo recital for Hyperion, fearlessly scales the giddy heights (and gentler slopes) of Liszt Complete Songs Volume 5; Julius Drake tackles the equally challenging piano accompaniments with his usual aplomb. And if Antoine de Févin's Missa Ave Maria & Missa Salve sancta parens are today little known, then this new recording from The Brabant Ensemble under the ever-committed direction of Stephen Rice should go some way to rehabilitating the reputation of this Renaissance scion of the minor nobility, priest, singer and composer.

It was in 1918 that King's College Cambridge first hosted its own Festival of Nine Lessons & Carols. Broadcasts began in 1928, and the rest is history. This commemorative double album traces much of this history, with archive performances under David Willcocks and Philip Ledger as well as a selection of new recordings directed by Stephen Cleobury.

On Signum Classics Advent Live presents recordings originally broadcast live by the BBC as part of the St John's College Choir Cambridge Advent Carol Services of 2014-2017. Andrew Nethsingha conducts a refreshingly diverse programme. Chichester Cathedral Choir marks 100 years since the guns of the First World War fell silent. Lest we forget, with music by Stanford, Parry, Holst, Ireland and others, is directed by Charles Harrison. And the theme of remembrance is continued with John Brunning's Swansongs, a mini song-cycle performed by Elin Manahan Thomas and Daniel Grimwood.

A second release on Colin Currie's own label sees the master of all things percussion joined by the trumpet of Håkan Hardenberger. Brett Dean's The scene of the crime provides the title track, with other works including André Jolivet's seminal Heptade.

Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra have recorded the two Elgar Wand of Youth Suites, miniature masterpieces of nostalgia and melodic invention, and worthy additions to the composer's burgeoning discography on the Hallé label, now very much his modern-day home.

Soprano Grace Davidson has recorded all twenty-one songs from John Dowland's First Booke of Songs or Ayres with lutenist David Miller. Captured by the Signum microphones in the sensitive acoustic of Ascot Priory, these most intimate and expressive of songs—the smash hits of the first Elizabethan age—have lost nothing of their power over the intervening centuries.

It is two years since the last instalment in this important series from The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips. The Josquin Masses here are 'Gaudeamus' and 'L'ami baudichon', the one a mathematical high-wire response to a substantial chant melody, the other intriguingly transforming a decidedly smutty text. The recording from Gimell is everything one would expect.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner, a soloist-led Monteverdi Choir and The English Baroque Soloists spent much of 2017 performing Monteverdi's three surviving operas. Recorded at the culmination of their mini odyssey, this new SDG triple-album of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria is a delight.

Julian Bliss joins the Carducci String Quartet for a second collaboration on Signum: the Clarinet Quintets by Mozart & Weber were composed in the two decades around the start of the nineteenth century and for players at the vanguard of their instrument's technical development, and remain icons of the repertoire. Praise my soul from Jesus College Choir Cambridge presents a spirited collection of favourite hymns old and new as chosen by new Director of Music Richard Pinel.

A new release on the Mariinsky label this month presents Valery Gergiev's 2014 recording of Stravinsky Petrushka. This iconic score finds the Mariinsky Orchestra on effervescent form, and is coupled with one of the composer's hidden gems, the witty Jeu de cartes.

Tenebrae, Nigel Short and the Aurora Orchestra join with mezzo-soprano Dame Sarah Connolly and narrator Simon Callow for A walk with Ivor Gurney, this varied Signum album exploring and developing the works of a composer whose career was shattered by his experiences of war.