Jean Rondeau, Purcell Room, Dec 6 [Mathias Benguigui]

NOT everybody likes the harpsichord. Sir Thomas Beecham, the conductor famous for sharpness of tongue as well as smartness of beat, described its sound as like “skeletons copulating on a tin roof”. Noel Coward heard it less abrasively as “some­one piddling on flannel”. And though the period performance movement has returned it to prominence, it’s never been what you might call a sexy instrument – until recently when a new generation of dazzling young, pin-up players (who both look and sound good) have emerged.

Two of them are in London this week, on consecutive nights. So it’s a rare opportunity to compare the relative virtuosity, not to say glamour, of the French rockstar-style performer Jean Rondeau at the Purcell Room, Dec 6 (southbankcentre.co.uk) with the more dreamily romantic French-American Justin Taylor at Wigmore Hall, Dec 7 (wigmore-hall.org.uk). Both are playing Bach. Rondeau couples it with Ligeti and fancier presentation. Take your choice, neither will disappoint. No piddling or copulating likely.

• When I was a young critic, the sexiest thing in classical music was the London Sinfonietta whose programmes of cutting-edge contemporary music had the cult following of a guru on the Ganges: charismatic, colourful, dynamic. These days things are quieter, but the Sinfonietta remains a force to be reckoned with. And it’s at Kings Place, Dec 6, with music by Judith Weir, James MacMillan and (like the old days) that once-glowing firebrand of late 20th-century modernism, Peter Maxwell Davies. kingsplace.co.uk*

• There’s no escaping choral music this week, it being December, with an interesting Messiah at Smith Square, Dec 7, done by the excellent touring opera company Wild Arts with just eight voices and an element of staging (by Tom Morris, famous for Warhorse). Orlando Jopling conducts a pared-down period band. And though it’s all small-scale, it has big energy – as I can vouch, having seen an embryonic version of this show last year. sinfoniasmithsq.org.uk

Other seasonal events include a carol concert from Highgate Choral Society at St Michael’s N6, Dec 7 (hcschoir.com); another from the venerable Bach Choir at Cadogan Hall, Dec 11 (cadoganhall.com); the choir of Merton College Oxford on tour to the Temple Church, Dec 6 (templemusic.org); and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio at St Peter’s, Belsize Square, Dec 8 (belsizebaroque.org.uk). But my chief recommen­dation is the always wonderful, Birmingham-based Ex Cathedra, who bring their annual Christmas event to St Martin-in-the-Fields on Dec 13 – so much in demand these days, they repeat it Dec 16. stmartin-in-the-fields.org

• Less seasonably, Elgar’s ultra-intense and not so festive oratorio of death, the Dream of Gerontius is at the Barbican, Dec 13, given by the BBCSO and Chorus with soloists Nicky Spence and Sarah Connolly. barbican.org.uk

• And rounding off this anniversary year for Puccini, who died 100 years ago last month, the LSO give a concert perfor­mance at the Barbican of one of his less celebrated operas, La Rondine. A lightweight romance with a sweeping score, it’s conducted by Antonio Pappano as part of a series of concert-operas the former music director at Covent Garden plans for his new life with a symphony orchestra. Plays Dec 10 & 12. barbican.org.uk