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VOCES8 perform choral music spanning 800 years, including a BBC commission from Alexia Sloane, with great energy, articulation and virtuosity in an impressive Proms debut at Cadogan Hall.

Peter Sellars' dramatised production of di Lasso's Lagrime di San Pietro is stunningly sung by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, but the dramatic element causes problems.

The Sixteen launched us into the final days before Christmas with a well-thought out and diverse combination of songs on The Three Kings.

The BBC Concert Orchestra and Barry Wordsworth were joined by Stile Antico, Jack Liebeck and Christine Rice in an exploration of the musical mind of fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. 

The Italian male choir Ensemble Adhecaton gave a wonderful performance of Renaissance motets and Palestrina's Missa Papae Marcelli at the Oslo International Church Music Festival.

Written in 1594 and published posthumously in Munich the following year, the Lagrime de San Pietro was Orlando de Lassus’ final composition.

Celebrating their 40th anniversary year, The Tallis Scholars presented a programme of Renaissance polyphony centred around another anniversary – that of Carlo Gesualdo, the 400th anniversary of whose death falls this year. The first half of the concert was a complete performance of Gesualdo’s masterpiece, the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday (1611).

Entitled “Passion and Resurrection”, this exquisite concert from Stile Antico unfolded as an exploration of music written in response to Holy Week.One of the group’s most striking characteristics is their decision to work without a conductor, a move which can at times produce chamber music of the highest quality.

“Please silence all electronic devices and refrain from talking. This evening’s program will be presented without intermission or breaks for applause. It is our hope that this structure will assist in providing a meaningful experience...

I Fagiolini is a vocal group I have been trying to see live for quite a while now, so I was extremely excited to be attending the London offering of Insalata I Fagiolini at Cadogan Hall.

The King’s Singers epitomise a cappella musicianship. The group was originally formed in the 1960s by choral scholars of King’s College, Cambridge (and one from Christ Church, Oxford), but its current membership includes members who were previously choral scholars at Oxford, and even one member from New Zealand.

The theme of tonight’s concert, revealed the programme notes, was that of “marking time and preserving timeless values” – Christmas being a season that connects the past with the present.

By calling this year’s Choral Pilgrimage tour The Earth Resounds and including excerpts from a piece known as the “Earthquake mass”, Harry Christophers and The Sixteen created an expectation of drama and excitement before they’d sung a single note.

In the spare modern elegance of Hall One at Kings Place, choral octet Platinum Consort, under the direction of their founder and conductor Scott Inglis-Kidger, gave an impressive and impeccably presented performance of works from their critically acclaimed recording In the Dark, written for, or inspired by, the Tenebrae tradition.

Trendy titles and taglines are more or less a given at classical concerts nowadays, but that doesn’t prevent me feeling a twinge of resentment each time pieces are pigeon-holed into a concert ‘narrative’. Thus it was with a certain trepidation that I headed to Southwark Cathedral for ‘The Knight and the Lady’, a concert of sacred vocal music performed by the New Renaissance Voices.