• We are in the season of Advent, a time once reserved for quiet reflection before 25 December. Now, wherever we turn, it’s dubbed “the run-up to Christmas”, as though we must all join a frantic race to the mince-pie-and-mulled-wine finish line. Whatever, Advent, with its concentration on the fundamentals of life and existence, is far more interesting musically than Christmas, offering endless inspiration for carols and anthems.

The choir of St John’s College, Cambridge has been cornering the market in this music since it started broadcasting its annual Service for Advent With Carols in 1981. You can listen again to last Sunday’s broadcast on Radio 3 iPlayer or enjoy music selected from broadcasts made over the past four years in a new release on Signum, Advent Live.

Andrew Nethsingha’s splendid choir covers a vast range of repertoire, from Joubert’s There Is No Rose to wholly new works, including David Bednall’s startling Noe, Noe. The intensity of live broadcast gives this music an edge and vibrancy that can disappear in the normal recording process, and it’s poignant to reflect that those boys who sing so beautifully in the earlier years represented here have long since lost their treble voices.

• For a refreshing take on Christmas music, this year’s standout recording is Christmas With Sonoro (Resonus). Neil Ferris’s choir is abundant in warm tonal variety and unafraid to live up to its name, with a sonorous, rich and full sound. An affecting In the Bleak Midwinter by Becky McGlade sits alongside Michael Higgins’s exciting arrangements of The Angel Gabriel and Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day, which in turn join such timeless gems as Howells’s A Spotless Rose and Warlock’s Bethlehem Down.

• If you want to know more about carols and their distinctly unChristmassy origins, catch up on iPlayer with Lisa Colton’s fascinating talk from the Radio 3 series Choir and Organ entitled When Carols Aren’t Always What You Think.