Troubled by his own nascent Catholicism as well as the state of war-torn Europe, Francis Poulenc wrote his choral masterpiece, Figure humaine, in 1943, calling the cantata both a "sacred duty" and a patriotic gesture to France. Scored for double choir, at times dividing into 14 parts, the work sets texts by Paul Eluard, culminating in Liberté. It forms the centrepiece of an impeccable disc that includes Mass in G, Un Soir de neige and the Litanies à la Vierge noire, inspired by a pilgrimage to the black virgin of Rocamadour.

It is all unaccompanied, as well as, in the rich, clashing harmonies and ethereal sounds, beguilingly unearthly.