Plácido Domingo: Puccini Ritrovato

What do you give a Puccini collector for Christmas? Possibly this collection of opera morsels

Carla Bley: Carla’s Christmas Carols

Bley takes a dozen seasonal staples and subtly refashions them in her warm, quirky style

Rupa & the April Fishes: Este Mundo

If you have matured beyond Manu Chao, there is plenty to enjoy on this second album from the San Franciscans

Snoop Dogg: Malice N Wonderland

The "supergangster" has produced a record drenched in disaster-movie samples and ever more complicated personal branding

30 Seconds to Mars: This is War

The actor Jared Leto and his band deliver a tighter, more textured set of indie-rock tunes than on their previous albums

Dannii Minogue: The 1995 Sessions; Get Into You; Love and Kisses

These three repackaged albums form the X Factor judge contain the sort of nostalgic ballads you just don’t hear any more

Anne Queffelec: Haydn

Queffelec plays with a delightful lightness of touch, coupled with intellectual penetration

Westlife: Where We Are

In spite of the various producers, a machine-tooled air of efficiency pervades over these soporific power ballads

Blakroc: Blakroc

Hip-hop and rock have always rubbed along well together, and that's cerainly the case on Damon Dash's latest offering

Balm in Gilead

With no political villain to rail against, Ricki Lee Jones heads back to the personal — her most upbeat collection in years

Richard Strauss

Strauss was a tremendous all-rounder— even his a cappella was brilliant and ravishing, as shown by these four items

Blakroc

The rap-rock duo's success lies in that it shows you the genre’s potential instead of entrenching your worst misgivings

Stravinsky

The transcription restores a sense of danger to a work at risk of losing its explosiveness through overfamiliarity

Purcell/Handel/Haydn

This lavishly presented compendium offers three works with vivacious links to Cecilia, music's patron saint

That’s Right

The Fallen Leaves’ guitarist Rob Symmons and vocalist Rob Green's punchy mod-punk mix remains timeless

Ravel

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s ear for Ravel’s evocation of the twilit moments before dawn, and the spectacular sunrise, are fabulous

Beethoven/Britten

The younger generation of violin virtuosos line up to challenge the old masters in Beethoven’s great concerto

Bach Reloaded

Grumps who complain modern jazz is anaemic will find themselves mistaken when they come across this set by Jenni Molloy

A Friend of a Friend

Dave Rawlings Machine can be raucous, but it has, in truth, comfortably matched a highly enjoyable benchmark

Throw Down Your Heart

Stripped of the images for which the music was made, it loses some of its impact — but Bela Fleck's humility shines through