Sol y vida is Elīna Garanča’sjourney to the South, from Spain to Italy and Latin America, and is her first album focusing entirely on non core-classical repertoire. Be ready to expect a personal album from the mezzo-soprano, whose centre of life has been Spain for many years. A selection of songs, canzone and tango pieces, both mirroring and spreading a flamboyantly emotional array of beaming happiness, passionate longing and exuberant joy. A feast of vocal colours, and a firework of passion, from the well-known Granada to the intimate world of La Llorona.

Switzerland has always had a great attraction for Russian composers. Peter Tschaikowsky, Sergei Prokofjew and Igor Stravinsky were impressed by the beauty of the Swiss Alpine landscape. The composer Sergei Rachmaninoff should even find his new home here. Not far from Lucerne, on Lake Lucerne, the famous composer and pianist built a magnificent house, the "Villa Senar", in 1930 and found the peace and quiet here to compose famous works today. In the summer of 1934 he wrote his highly virtuoso "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini" for piano and orchestra, and a year later his 3rd symphony.

The back cover of this Czech release promises "certainly the most intense chamber programme that might be dedicated to the joint memory of Sviatoslav Richter and Dmitry Shostakovich," and the performances live up to the billing. The first half of the program is given over to a pair of string quartets from the year 1960, around the point where Shostakovich's inward turn following his denunciation by Soviet cultural commissars merged with his reflections on the violence of modern war to create a uniquely modern tragic dialogue.

Another French baroque opera composer, Henry Desmarest, resurfaces after centuries of obscurity. Vénus & Adonis, first seen in 1697 in Paris, was composed in the midst of a scandal, when Desmarest eloped with a young singer who was the daughter of a powerful official. In his absence, he was sentenced to death and thus effectively exiled until his pardon in 1720. The opera’s theme of illicit love seems to have fired Desmarest’s imagination, and the stylish cast, headed by Karine Deshayes and Sébastien Droy, responds in kind. One senses, too, rare involvement in the playing of Les Talens Lyriques. More Desmarest operas await.

Santana was still a respected rock veteran in 1999, but it had been years since he had a hit, even if he continued to fare well on the concert circuits. Clive Davis, the man who had signed Santana to Columbia in 1968, offered him the opportunity to set up shop at his label, Arista. In the tradition of comebacks and label debuts by veteran artists in the '90s, Supernatural, Santana's first effort for Arista, is designed as a star-studded event. At first listen, there doesn't seem to be a track that doesn't have a guest star, which brings up the primary problem with the album - despite several interesting or excellent moments, it never develops a consistent voice that holds the album together. The fault doesn't lay with the guest stars or even with Santana, who continues to turn in fine performances. There's just a general directionless feeling to the record, enhanced by several songs that seem like excuses for jams…

This Gershwin collection is divided into two CDs; the first has many of his more popular pieces from Broadway productions, and the second has a selection of his symphonic works. Some of the songs on the first CD are performed by singers such as Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington and sound absolutely spectacular.