Mozart: The String Quintets Klenke Quartet (with Harald Schoneweg, viola) (Accentus Music)

At Wigmore Hall the JACK Quartet presented the complete Elliott Carter string quartets in a single day – an astonishing feat given the scale and complexity of the music.

This was a fascinating, unexpected prospect; instantly appealing to anyone who’s ever wondered about the string quartet’s niche in the 21st-century musical ecosystem. Two practically new song cycles for soprano and quartet – Kate Whitley’s Charlotte Mew Songs (2017, but extended earlier this year) and Kate Soper’s Nadja (2015) - framed the Third Quartet (1938) by Elizabeth Maconchy.

There are those who say, somewhat cynically, that a way for new music to get an audience is to present it carefully packaged up with standard repertoire that will draw a larger crowd.

Vyacheslav Artyomov: In Memoriam, Lamentations, Pietà, Tristia I (Divine Art)

Imagine for a moment that you are at, say, the Derby. It’s pretty good. But then in flies Pegasus, the mythical winged horse. What happens?

The Endellion Quartet first rehearsed on 20 January 1979, deep in the throes of Britain’s so-called “Winter of Discontent”. That longevity – with three of the original players still on the team after four decades – makes the acclaimed ensemble roughly as old as Spandau Ballet, and senior to REM.

Julia Wolfe, Caroline Shaw, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir: three names on quite a list I reeled off earlier this week when someone asked me why the compositions of Rebecca Saunders, in the news for winning the €250,000 Ernst von Siemens Music Prize, make me lose the will to live, and whom I’d choose instead.

Most classical concert reviews focus on prominent orchestras and opera companies at major venues. But beyond the likes of the Barbican and the Royal Opera House, there are whole strata of musical life where smaller scale ensembles and amateur choirs provide a vital live music experience in less exalted venues.

The Conway Hall in London is one such venue, whose offering goes beyond music – it embraces art, lectures, community events and even monthly atheist "services" – but whose main hall has a pleasant acoustic for its regular Sunday concerts.

Starry times with the big spectaculars really paid off this year, even if the works performed weren't unusual for London. Pappano's latest Verdi Requiem at the Royal Opera was the classiest perfection imaginable, crowned by the phenomenal Lise Davidsen.