Favorite French Composers Poll

[James]

Following Don's Russian composer poll, I figured it'd be alright try a GMG poll on French composers. Five votes permitted, if I forgot to list one of your favorite French composers just select "other" and please include the unlisted composer's name in your reply. Thanks.

[Brian]

Berlioz
Saint-Saens
Franck
Bizet
Ravel

Honorable Mention: Chabrier

[The new erato]

C Franck were Belgian, if he is included Honegger ought to be as well (both spent a lot of their time in Paris).

Edit: Honegger IS included! Sorry!

Dufay
Desprez
Rameau
Saint-Saens
Faure

This poll hurts, there's so many favorite left by the wayside!

[Wanderer]

Alkan
Berlioz
Poulenc
Ravel
Saint-Saëns

Of course there are more, but you only asked for five.

[71 dB]

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Jean-Philippe Rameau
Camille Saint-Saëns
Gabriel Fauré

[greg]

Varese, Boulez, Messiaen, Ravel, Debussy

[BachQ]

Saint-Saens
Franck
Bizet
Ravel
Berlioz

[bhodges]

Debussy
Ravel
Boulez
Dutilleux
Messiaen

And one more whose work I find utterly fascinating and suspect may be recalled as influential in years to come, as one of the founders of the "spectralist" movement:

Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)

--Bruce

[greg]

Gérard Grisey (1946-1998)

--Bruce

He, Poulenc, and Berlioz would be my runners-up 

[Pierre]

Delibes (delicious, utterly unpretentious music)
Chabrier (ditto, though quite different in character)
Chausson (extraordinarily haunting stuff, especially Poeme)
Ravel (unequalled when at his best: Rhapsodie espagnole; L'enfant et les sortileges)
Poulenc (sheer indulgence)

I'd probably vote for different composers on a different day - v sorry not to include Dutilleux, for example.

[orbital]

Alkan
Debussy
Ravel
Faure
Satie

[some guy]

Even though I love Berlioz above everyone before, say, 1911, and could easily have voted for people like Poulenc on the one hand and Varèse on the other (who was to all intents and purposes an American composer--in a very real, and legally binding way...), I decided to vote only for "Other," so I could confine myself to five without stabbing my eyes out with a pencil:

Michèle Bokanowski (rich, lovely sounds--heart-stoppingly gorgeous music)
Eliane Radigue (just starting to listen to her--a friend of Michèle's, she's what one might term a drone minimalist--as opposed to a pattern minimalist or a phase minimalist or a concept minimalist.)
Lionel Marchetti (someone who in his composed work combines electroacoustic "tape" techniques with the "open mike" kind of thing associated with Luc Ferrari, and who, with Jérôme Noetinger, is one of the most inventive live electronics improvisers)
Francis Dhomont (a pioneer of electroacoustic music--was discovering on his own some of the same things Pierre Schaeffer would become known for inventing around the same time as Pierre, maybe even earlier...)
Luc Ferrari (the giant among giants--the most innovative and revered of the not famous French composers--the one that in certain circles is the most famous, too)

Wow. Only five? Are you sure? You meant fifty, I think. (Otherwise, where'd I put that pencil....)

[ChamberNut]

Berlioz
Franck
DeBussy
Chausson
Faure

[The new erato]

Even though I love Berlioz above everyone before, say, 1911, and could easily have voted for people like Poulenc on the one hand and Varèse on the other (who was to all intents and purposes an American composer--in a very real, and legally binding way...), I decided to vote only for "Other," so I could confine myself to five without stabbing my eyes out with a pencil:

Michèle Bokanowski (rich, lovely sounds--heart-stoppingly gorgeous music)
Eliane Radigue (just starting to listen to her--a friend of Michèle's, she's what one might term a drone minimalist--as opposed to a pattern minimalist or a phase minimalist or a concept minimalist.)
Lionel Marchetti (someone who in his composed work combines electroacoustic "tape" techniques with the "open mike" kind of thing associated with Luc Ferrari, and who, with Jérôme Noetinger, is one of the most inventive live electronics improvisers)
Francis Dhomont (a pioneer of electroacoustic music--was discovering on his own some of the same things Pierre Schaeffer would become known for inventing around the same time as Pierre, maybe even earlier...)
Luc Ferrari (the giant among giants--the most innovative and revered of the not famous French composers--the one that in certain circles is the most famous, too)

Wow. Only five? Are you sure? You meant fifty, I think. (Otherwise, where'd I put that pencil....)

While we're going obscure here, what about Pierre Henry, Henry Schaeffer, Maurice Ohana? And since I can't see the poll options while typing the answer, were the less obcure Jolivet and Francaix included? Germain Tailleferre and Cecile Chaminade certainly weren't.....

[Don]

Berlioz
Saint-Saens
Faure
Debussy
Ravel

[71 dB]

I guess the results will be pretty predictable: The "Romantics" will come 1st, the "Modernists" 2nd, with the composers from the Baroque and earlier in last position.

Q

Charpentier: 2 votes
Rameau: 5 votes
Debussy: 15 votes
Ravel: 19 votes

Are Debussy & Ravel really that good composers? I enjoy their music but I enjoy Charpentier and Rameau too. Some people just ignore baroque... 

[alkan]

ALKAN !!!!!!      Naturellement .......   

[Tsaraslondon]

My top 3 (Berlioz, Debussy and Ravel) were easy. My other 2 were much more difficult, though, in the end I opted for Duparc ( a small, but perfect, output) and Poulenc. However I could just as easily have opted for Bizet, Offenbach, Messiaen, Gounod, Chausson, Lilli Boulanger, Massenet or Saint- Saens.

[Siedler]

Debussy
Ravel
Rameau
Saint-Saëns
Bizet

[The new erato]

Wikipedia: Dufay was among the most influential composers of the 15th century, and his music was copied, distributed and sung everywhere that polyphony had taken root. Almost all composers of the succeeding generations absorbed some elements of his style. The wide distribution of his music is all the more impressive considering that he died several decades before the availability of music printing.

How many French composers can you say that about (except for Debussy)?. Yet I'm the only one to like his music and consider him among the very greatest?