Since it's been a long time since we had either a work by Poulenc or a 20th-century a cappella masterpiece, I thought we'd finish this year with both.

Poulenc's 1943 setting of the sometimes elusive, but always powerful, Éluard text in the cantata Figure humaine is an extraordinary feat for double chorus. It is a reflection on the nature of liberty, but in a much deeper sense it is a reflection on the nature of humanity, on how we treat each other, on the inherent worth of life and the dignity for which it cries out. Coming as it did in the midst of the most destructive war in history, the resonance for Poulenc must have been overwhelming. Only a few years later he would write the ironic "Les mamelles de Tirésias," a reflection on what should have been the war to end all wars.

The excerpt for this month's clip ("A spotless fire") is a tour de force for the singers, with rapid leaps, spit-fire diction, and a heavy dose of chromaticism in imitative writing. There is little like it in Poulenc's oeuvre.