Three albums only this time, but each a winner in its distinctive way. Here they are, in order of appearance, with track listings:

William Susman, A Quiet Madness (Belarca 2020)

• Seven Scenes for Four Flutes

Patricia Zuber, flutes (all four of them)

• Zydeco Madness

Stas Venglevski, bayan

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When Basil Twist got his MacArthur in 2015, the only question was why it had taken so long. As far as the smart money was concerned, his genius had been established fact since 1998, when he first interpreted an opium dream from the pen of Hector Berlioz in a 500-gallon aquarium. Some critics called Twist's Symphonie Fantastique a nonrepresentational underwater puppet show; more accurately, Twist himself described it as a "spectacle of abstract form." Whipped up from tatters of fabric, wands, the odd ostrich feather, acrylic cutouts, and other far-from-precious bric-a-brac, the instant hit went on to glory in boutique venues around the world.

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We cleared the deck this week for three extra guests:

• Riccardo Muti, maestro of maestros;
• the pianist Mahani Teave, who visited with us via Zoom from her ancestral home in the shadow of the fabled moai of Easter Island (audio links above);
• the composer David Hertzberg, whose lavish, mind-altering scores affect his growing fan base like a narcotic.

As a chaser, there was choral music of luminous austerity from the Icelandic composer María Huld Markan Sigfúsdóttir. The Sigfúsdóttir tracks and those from "Rapa Nui Odyssey" are available on the linked Apple Music playlist.

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On the tenth day of Christmas—that would be January 3—we set a high bar for the year ahead (can eleven lords a-leaping be far behind?). Check out the playlist on Apple Music.

Top picks

Charles Ives: Complete Symphonies (Deutsche Grammophon 2020)

Los Angeles Philharmonic; Gustavo Dudamel

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