Album: A Filetta, Intantu (Deda)

This Corsican a cappella male-voice group are world-beaters in the art of discreet self-effacement – no internet homepage, a mere list of their credits in Wikipedia – yet their intricate art has a barbaric beauty, and the re-release of this remarkable CD allows us to savour it.

"Filetta" is a Corsican fern, which accurately symbolises the way their polyphony unfolds. Invited to create music to accompany Seneca's "Medea", they do so with passionate force: though the text is in Corsican, one still gets the whiff of archaic heroism.