With Spem in alium & other sacred music by Thomas Tallis Hyperion's Record of the Month for November celebrates the culmination of our Gramophone Award-winning series from Andrew Carwood and The Cardinall’s Musick, the monumental forty-part motet—here performed in both its Latin and English settings—providing a suitably spectacular conclusion. Quintessential English masterpieces of a later age come courtesy of Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra: a wonderful programme centred on the Elgar Enigma Variations is augmented by In the South and three less familiar elegiac works dating from the First World War.

Journeying further afield, the Romantic Piano Concerto reaches the Antipodes with Piano Concertos by Hill & Boyle, volume 69 in the series. The indefatigable Piers Lane needs no introduction; conductor Johannes Fritzsch and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra make their Hyperion debuts. While back in early twentieth-century Mitteleuropa Mikrokosmos 5 & other Bartók piano music is the dynamic second instalment in Cédric Tiberghien’s ongoing survey.

A new recording from The Tallis Scholars and Peter Phillips presents two additions to their burgeoning Josquin cycle on Gimell. Josquin's Missa Di dadi & Missa Une mousse de Biscaye are fascinating, the former including printed dice scores in the original notation to (mis)guide the performers, and the latter—perhaps Josquin's earliest Mass setting—taking as its theme the fifteenth-century equivalent of The girl from Ipanema.

A new release from Collegium Records (and their first to be available from Hyperion) presents Visions by John Rutter, the composer conducting the Temple Church Choristers and violinist Kerson Leong in this important new work, and revisiting his famous Requiem in the company of The Cambridge Singers; the excellent Aurora Orchestra shines throughout.

On the King's Cambridge label we have our first 'seasonal' excursion of the year—The King's Men address the Twelve days of Christmas in a manner not lacking in chutzpah.

Christmas comes early for Signum Classics also with a contrasting triptych of new albums. St John's College Choir Cambridge and director Andrew Nethsingha present an innovative Christmas with St John's, new commissions invigorating a programme including diverse more established works. Adeste fideles is a more traditional sequence of popular carols from seven countries; Huw Williams conducts the men and boys of The Choir of the Chapel Royal. A new album from The King's Singers is always a treat: their new Christmas Songbook will delight a worldwide legion of fans with its familiar jinksy charm.

On LSO Live Valery Gergiev whirls the London Symphony Orchestra through a vivacious programme of Stravinsky, Prokofiev & Bartók (including the latter's Piano Concerto No 3 with soloist Yefim Bronfman). Also available from the LSO is a new set of Sir Colin Davis' definitive Sibelius Symphonies cycle recorded between 2002 and 2008.