It has been remarked before that, in recordings of Poulenc's unaccompanied choral works, all the running has been made by English choirs, his own countrymen have shown little inclination to rise to the challenge (half of the proudly-named Groupe Vocale de France was in fact English, as was its conductor)- and the few that have were not very distinguished. So Brownie points, then, to this Provencal group for tackling Poulenc's fervent, and extremely difficult, double-chorus cantata La figure humaine, written to Eluard's clandestinely-circulated poems during the Nazi occupation of France though it obviously stretches the singers to their very limits. There is, too often, a lack of security in the soprano line, particularly on high notes; the chording of some of the harmonically complex passages sounds tentative (and the placing of notes in the chromatically fugal ''La menace'' is touch-and-go); there is a marked lack of tonal weight and of attack in general (e.g. in ''Riant du ciel'') and in the very opening bass line in particular; and dynamic contrast is rather limited. It is a brave effort, but honesty compels one to say that the performance on LP by the Uppsala Academic Chamber Choir (Erato/RCA STU70924, 7/78) is more assured and more subtle overall, more seductive in the honeyed calm of ''Toi ma patiente'' and more spirited in movements like ''En chantant, les servantes s'elancent''; and the Swedes were better at working up to the stirring climax of the final hymn to liberty.
Of the motets (completely ignored in the presentation material) which are included here to make up an unimpressive total of 40 minutes, much of the most successful are the short St Francis of Assisi pieces for male chorus, even if some of the voices sound less mature. In the Trinity College performance of these on Conifer, the men were placed at an excessive distance, and the present recording gains enormously in clarity by a closer balance. (The opening of ''O mes tres chers freres'', sung by a solo voice in the Conifer issue, is here allotted to the whole section.) Helene Guy, probably aware of her singers' limitations of quality, takes the Salve regina much faster than Richard Marlow, so that it is less nuanced as a result. The much closer perspective adopted by the Verany technicians benefits verbal clarity in the Christmas motets, but also shows up some tentative soprano entries and a weak start to ''Hodie Christus natus est'' by the tenors. For these pieces Marlow—or Rutter (Collegium/Gamut (CD) COLCD108, 10/88)—is preferable.'