Favorite French Composers Poll

[71 dB]

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?

I don't know Dufay's music. I don't listen to renaissance music much. Palestrina sometimes but that's it. Baroque music is much more interesting.

[Bogey]

Jean-Baptiste Lully
Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Gabriel Fauré
Paul Dukas
Maurice Ravel

and an honarable mention to André Danican Philidor.

and I need to check out Dufay pronto.

[Sergeant Rock]

1. Berlioz

2. Debussy

3. Ravel

4. Satie

5. MAGNARD!!!


Sarge

[The new erato]

d'Indy is substantial as well, anybody know his string quartets (recorded by the Joachim Qt)? But Magnard is very worthwhile.

[not edward]

If we're allowed to count the not-really-French composers, I'll vote Dufay/Debussy/Ravel/Honegger/Dutilleux. Oops, forgot about Berlioz!

[some guy]

Erato, who you callin' obscure? 

Actually, if you get the right people together, none of these people is obscure. Luc Ferrari was a cult figure in the seventies and eighties, with much jostling of elbows in record stores for his latest LP. When he died a couple of years ago, there were immediately concerts of his works all over Europe. And still there's elbow jostling when new CDs come out. (eRikm has been assiduously performing and recording hitherto unperformed or unrecorded Ferrari.)

Radigue and Dhomont are quite well known. Radigue has almost cult status as an electroacoustic minimalist. Dhomont taught several generations of electroacoustic composers in Montreal. Probably the largest electroacoustic label is the one in Montreal. His eightieth birthday concert there in 2006 was sold out. People had to be turned away.

That leaves Lionel Marchetti, who is wildly famous--among the right people!--and Bokanowski, who should be more famous than she is.

I certainly wouldn't call Henry obscure. With Schaeffer, he's one of the founders of electroacoustic music. He gives concerts in Paris all the time, still. Schaeffer's GRM is still one of the more prominent electronic music studios in the world. Ohana, may be. I'll give you Ohana.

[The new erato]

Ohana, may be. I'll give you Ohana.

Isn't Ohana the only one of these to be currently reasonably available on record?

[some guy]

James,

I will try, but I have to warn you that I do not personally distinguish between "great" and "interesting."

Still, let's see what I can come up with:

Bokanowski, L'étoile Absinthe. Utterly marvelous. Grabs you and does not let go. I thought that as Pour un Pianiste and the soundtrack to L'Ange were recently released, they'd be easier to locate. Well, you just have to go to the Metamkine site. They're all there.

Radigue, Trilogie de la Mort is probably her most famous piece. Jetsun Mila is recent. But even though it's been out since May, I still don't have this. So it might even be better! I still have a special fondness for Biogenesis, as that was the first Radigue I really enjoyed. (That's on Metamkine,too, though Radigue's CDs are easy to find on Amazon.

Marchetti, Portrait d'un Glacier. Marchetti's difficult to choose from. He does both composed music and improv. My favorite of the latter is on a Hermes disc, Hermes 034, though Double Wash, with Noetinger and Voice Crack is pretty sweet, too. And while you're on the Metamkine site, you might as well check out the Marchetti they have, too. (All those three inch CDs for only three Euros and the five inch ones for eight Euros. Nice!!)

Dhomont, Les dérives du signe. (Four pieces, Novar, Chiaroscuro, Météores, and Signé Dionysos. Météores is also a movement of Chroniques de la lumière, which also includes Miroitements and Artifices. Odd that that should have happened, as Chroniques is a pretty tightly integrated piece. Of his more recent work, I like Je te salue, vieil océan very much.

Ferrari. Are you kidding me? What by Ferrari isn't great? OK. I'll make a short list of the long list of great Ferrari pieces. Presque Rien No. 1, which along with two other Presque Rien pieces and a number of other "open mike" pieces like Music Promenade, illustrates Cage's dictum that music is all around us. I started my Ferrari listening with Société II, Et si le piano était un corps de femme, which is a wild extravaganza of almost everything.

Otherwise, it's so hard to choose. Et si toute entiere maintenant, maybe? Danses organiques? Son memorise? Unheimlich schön? Nope. Too hard. I can't decide.

[some guy]

erato, If "reasonably available" means "on amazon," then all but Bokanowski are reasonably available.

Ohana has had a brief recent spurt of attention, that's true.

[Sydney Grew]

We have just pressed the buttons for four of them - naturally the incomparable Chausson was first of all - and for our fifth we pressed "Other": it is D'Indy of course!

May we perhaps also observe, although we find his productions inaesthetic and are not voting for him, that the music of Jean Barraqué is liked by a good many people.

[btpaul674]

Marc-Andre Dalbavie

[BachQ]

5. MAGNARD!!!

Oh darn ........ I wish I could re-vote .........

[val]

DUFAY

MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER

FRANÇOIS COUPERIN

BERLIOZ

DEBUSSY

[Cato]

Where is Louis Vierne?!?!?!?!?!   

I am shocked, shocked, shocked Monsieur, by this lapse!!!

Agreed, he produced mainly organ music, but have you heard his 6 GREAT Organ Symphonies??!?? 

His one orchestral symphony is a real trip to the twilight limits of the soul's outer zone!

And add another vote for Ernst Chausson!

[Don]

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... 

Better face it - Debussy and Ravel are the big guns of French classical music.  However, Charpentier and Rameau are hardly ignored; they're just eclipsed by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

[71 dB]

Better face it - Debussy and Ravel are the big guns of French classical music.  However, Charpentier and Rameau are hardly ignored; they're just eclipsed by Bach, Handel and Vivaldi.

I never "face" things that does not make sense. Debussy and Ravel are not the greatest romantic composers, are they? Bach, Handel on other hand are the greatest baroque composers.

What work by Debussy is better music than Rameau's Les Indes galantes? 

People ignore baroque and pay attention to the best (Bach, Handel and Vivaldi) only.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Rameau, Berlioz, Debussy, Ravel, Boulez. Fauré if I were allowed a sixth. Offenbach for fun. But definitely not Messiaen (shudder).

[The new erato]

People ignore baroque and pay attention to the best (Bach, Handel and Vivaldi) only.

I definitely agree  (and would add renaissance as well)....but if you listen to Debussy as romantic music you are missing a point.

[(poco) Sforzando]

We have just pressed the buttons for four of them - naturally the incomparable Chausson was first of all - and for our fifth we pressed "Other": it is D'Indy of course!

May we perhaps also observe, although we find his productions inaesthetic and are not voting for him, that the music of Jean Barraqué is liked by a good many people.

As for ourselves, if we may be so bold to perhaps view the productions of the composer nominated supra by the Member as aesthetic in the highest vein, we would mayhaps, had we felt welling within ourselves the urge to écrivez le nom d'un compositeur nous-même, and if we were able to locate the subject and predicate within our own sentence, have posited the name of the said Jean Barraqué as one of our favorites among the great musical geniuses of the pays français.

[pjme]

Here are a few names of French composers that had the misfortune to be born/ to live in the shadow of Debussy, Ravel, Messiaen and Boulez. I'm giving this list for information's sake -I have only heard a few of their works - and do not claim that they are "better" or "greater" or .....
AFAIK, they all wrote valuable music that deserves to be heard & played.Unfortunately the French themselves do little to promote their musical past & future...as compared to GB, the Nordic countries....

Charles Koechlin
André Jolivet
Jacques Charpentier
Jacques Castérède
Tony Aubin
Yvonne Desportes
Claude Ballif
Henry Barraud
Yves Baudrier
André Boucourechliev
Emmanuel Bondeville
André Casanova
Pierre Capdevielle
Maurice Jaubert
Raymond Loucheur
Ivo Malec
Thierry Escaich
Nicholas Bacri
Thérèse Brenet
Charles Chaynes
etc, etc etc

Peter