It is a preposterous notion: choosing a mere five albums for a list of the year’s most remarkable, out of the dozens, even hundreds, of memorable ones that land on a music critic’s desk over 12 months. So if this collection of 20 (technically, 21) favorites is by no means complete — indeed, it is by its nature almost arbitrary — it is at least a guide to four writers’ tastes and passions. (Though, coming from a group including devoted opera lovers, it is a strange guide that contains not a single complete opera recording.)

Two artists, the soprano Barbara Hannigan and the violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, appear twice here, a telling sign that most anything they do is worth hearing. Thus, too, with two composers: Hans Abrahamsen and, well, Bach. Two remarkable pianists, Alexandre Tharaud and Daniil Trifonov, show up again after being highlighted on last year’s list, the kind of consistent excellence to which we all should aspire.

Is it a set of “bests”? “Desert-island” discs? We’re not sure. But we can make one promise: If you spend the next few months with the music compiled here as companion, your life will be, if not necessarily happier or more prosperous, then at least more beautiful.

— ZACHARY WOOLFE