Magdalena Kožená plays the title role in Rossini's La Cenerentola at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Sarah Lee
Christmas is a bad time for classical music. Every year, just as the mercury begins its inexorable journey downwards, otherwise perfectly reasonable classical music fans are overcome by the urge to splash out on some tasteless Christmas music.
This can take many forms: from absurdly overblown orchestral arrangements of famous carols, to dreary choral bonanzas, to that essential Christmas time snorefest that is The Nutcracker. Worse, the record shops suddenly fill up with crossover nonsense designed to appeal to the casual listener who doesn't realise that Volare by G4 is neither Classical nor Christmassy, despite its appearance on the so-called No 1 Classical Christmas Album they've just bought.
But a little digging reveals there is, in fact, such a thing as tasteful Christmas music. Here are a few suggestions for ways to celebrate Christmas musically while still maintaining your dignity:
· Bach's Christmas Oratorio is the most obvious starting point, because you can't really fault Bach even if he does occasionally write music that takes six days to perform. Nikolaus Harnoncourt has a much-praised new recording out on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi which is definitely worth picking up.
· La Cenerentola is Rossini's chief contribution to the tasteful Christmas music canon and some would even argue his chief contribution to the operatic repertory. Although Cinderella is not actually a Christmas story, Rossini wrote his take on it - in the space of a few weeks - for a Christmas performance in 1816. Which is close enough. Magdalena Kožená is bringing her not inconsiderable vocal talents to the Royal Opera House in the title role from today, which should be fun.
· Jakub Jan Ryba is an obscure-to-neglected Czech composer, chiefly famous for his Czech Christmas Mass. It's certainly not Bach, but it has its charms and is certainly different - positively weird in parts. Recommended by a friend of mine, though another describes it as sounding like "a shepherd yodelling in the mountains".
· L'Enfance du Christ is Berlioz's choral masterpiece, and though lacking a nativity scene, it does feature a lot of angels, carpentry and children being massacred. Perfect Christmas music, in other words, and almost certainly what will be gracing my stereo come the big day itself.
· And if you really must listen to carols, you could worse than tuning in to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that has been given by the choir of King's College Chapel in Cambridge pretty much every Christmas Eve since 1918. All the sermonising is a bit religious for my heathen tastes, but boy can those guys sing.
