MUSIC makes a pleasurable and personal holiday gift. The CD market, though, is so saturated that shops are bewildering and online catalogues even more so.High-profile releases from the big labels are prominently displayed in shops and hyped in the press. Your loved ones can find these for themselves. The trick is to find a slightly obscure gem. What follows are subjective recommendations, based on my idea of Christmas presents for people I respect and care about. They are all full-price recordings released this year.

My criteria: Musical standards must be impeccable, the recording must be of a high quality and the repertoire inherently beautiful. I also expect artists to display originality and strict good taste. The discs should handle repeated hearings without palling, and the presentation must be attractive.

In this last category, nothing surpasses Jordi Savall's exquisite tribute to Miguel de Cervantes (Alia Vox). In the glut of celebrations for Don Quixote's 400th birthday this year, none have commemorated Cervantes's inherent musicality with such flair and elegance. His poems abound in musical references and descriptions of sounds, so Savall and his team have recreated the songs and dances of Don Quixote, interlaced with recitations.

Together with soprano Montserrat Figueras, the musicians of Hesperion XXI and La Capella Reial de Catalunya, Savall also has assembled a ravishing anthology of vocal and instrumental music from the early 16th Century, narrating key incidents from Quixote's life. The two CDs come tucked into the sleeves of a hard-cover book, along with texts in seven languages. Each section — even the Japanese one — boasts the facsimile of a period edition of Don Quixote.

Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante have come up with two must-haves for fans of baroque vocal music. Vivaldi's 1735 Bajazet (Virgin Classics) tells of the downfall of Ottoman Sultan Bajazet, with the usual baroque love triangles, betrayal, confusion and forgiveness. The top-drawer cast includes Ildebrando D'Arcangelo, David Daniels and Vivica Genaux. Biondo conducts with sprightly refinement.

Alessandro Scarlatti's 1715 oratorio La Santissima Trinita<$> (Virgin Veritas) tackles the opaque subject of the Holy Trinity and makes musical drama of metaphysical reflection. Whether or not you are interested in the theological permutations of faith, time and divine love, this fresh and engaging music is rendered here with verve and sensuality.

If you can't decide between opera and oratorio, choose Handel's Saul<$>, in a luscious new recording from Rene Jacobs with the RIAS Chamber Choir and Concerto Koln (Harmonia Mundi). This is not the first recording of Handel's 1738 tale of the Biblical King Saul, but it's the best. That's because Jacobs breathes with his singers and knows how to turn a phrase so that it is both feather-light and curvaceous. Sumptuous orchestration and gorgeous voices — Rosemary Joshua, Emma Bell, Lawrence Zazzo — add to the allure.

Those who love baroque music yet are not convinced by the period- instrument movement might like Angela Hewitt's new recordings of Bach's keyboard concertos (Hyperion) with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. These offer a startling union of modern instruments with a period-instrument intent and bold imagination. The results are not like anything you will ever have heard before, but they have a pristine beauty all of their own. More modern-instrument Bach is on offer in the form of Truls Mork's recording of the Bach cello suites (Virgin Classics). They've been done a million times before but you can never own too many versions and Mork has both the towering intelligence and the innate musicality to make his set worth having.

If you're looking for something less mainstream, go for Mork's recording of Russian cello sonatas (Virgin Classics) with pianists Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Lars Vogt. This double-disc set of music by Rachmaninoff, Miaskovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky and Prokofiev is evocative and flawless.

Cello fans should also consider Hyperion's recording of the Brahms sonatas by Steven Isserlis and Stephen Hough. They also slip in some Dvorak and Suk. The playing is as classy as it gets.

A delicious surprise for any lover of chamber music is Harmonia Mundi's release of Saint-Saens's first and second piano trios. I fell in love with the warm romanticism and light wit of this rare repertoire. Trio Wanderer's playing is a delight.

As the Mozart year looms, a gift that will impress any Wolfgang Amadeus buff is Hyperion's recording of Michael Haydn's Requiem. Michael Haydn, brother of the more famous Joseph, was friends with the young Mozart, who borrowed from the older man for his own Requiem. This CD, with a lush account by Robert King and the King's Consort, is a revelation and a pleasure.

A whimsical gift for the discerning listener is Gerald Finley's recording of Charles Ives songs with pianist Julius Drake (Hyperion). There's humour, reverie, nature, grief, rage and plenty of sheer aural beauty, and you can understand every word.