Read on as we run through the greatest French composers, from Couperin and Rameau right through to Messiaen and Boulez.
If the music is immediately appealing, and uses instrumental colour sensitively in an atmospheric or painterly (rather than expressive) manner, the chances are you are hearing a piece by a French composer. They will rarely attempt to storm the heavens in the manner of Beethoven or Mahler.
Indeed, if any French musician shows an interest in the Austro-German tradition, they tend to prefer the pre-Romantics, particularly the suave and understated expressiveness of Mozart, and the playfulness and wit of his colleague Haydn.
Best French composers : the top 21
21. Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)
Why she's here: A prodigious talent lost too soon, Lili Boulanger's haunting, harmonically rich works remain profoundly moving.
Lili Boulanger was one of the most prodigiously gifted and powerful of young voices among French composers who came to maturity in the second decade of the 20th century. Tragically, she suffered poor health. Weakened by bronchial pneumonia when she was two, she died aged only 24 from Crohn’s disease.
Yet in her few years she left several great masterpieces, including the cantata Faust et Hélène with which, aged 19, she won the Prix de Rome – the first female composer to do so – and the song cycle Clairières dans le Ciel. Several of her later works are understandably fraught in character, yet there is also a good deal of sunshine to be found in her earlier choral works such as Les sirènes.
Where to start with Lili Boulanger
Faust et Hélène; Psalms etcetera
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Chorus, BBC Philharmonic/Yan Pascal Tortelier Chandos CHAN 9745
20. Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)
Why he's here: A perfectionist of sound and colour, Henri Dutilleux created meticulously crafted works blending tradition with modernism.
Though a winner of the Prix de Rome in 1938, Dutilleux’s misfortune was to come to maturity just as the Second World War broke out. His subsequent career was overshadowed by the more obviously ‘modern’ music by the likes of Olivier Messiaen and his pupils. Pierre Boulez was one such pupil.
But lately, there has been a groundswell of appreciation from a younger generation of musicians. This was particularly prevalent from the late 1960s onwards. Mstislav Rostropovich was a champion of his music, having previously commissioned the cello concerto Tout un monde lointain….
Richard Rodney Bennett was another key champion, and Dutilleux’s music is now enjoying a renaissance of appreciation. Several fine recent recordings to explore include John Wilson’s BBC Music Magazine Award-winning account of Le Loup. This resurgence of interest has reminded us that Dutilleux was indeed one of the great French composers.
Where to start with Dutilleux
Correspondances; Tout un monde lointain…, etc
Barbara Hannigan (soprano), Anssi Karttunen (cello); Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Esa-Pekka Salonen Deutsche Grammophon 479 1180
19. Louise Farrenc (1804-75)
Why she's here: A remarkable composer and advocate for women in music, Louise Farrenc gained recognition for her symphonies and chamber works.
On first hearing, a good deal of Louise Farrenc’s work – especially her chamber music, similar in style to that of Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn – might appear to exemplify the well-mannered, ‘lady-like’ salon composer. This fact may be why her creative talent was more readily accepted by the French establishment than were that of many other women of her time.
A pupil of Anton Reicha (himself a former pupil of Beethoven’s and one of the top composition teachers of the time), Farrenc was also an outstanding pianist. In 1842, she was appointed professor of piano at the Paris Conservatoire, a post she held until her retirement in 1873 – the only woman to hold such a position at that institute during the 19th century.
Farrenc's music, while building on the achievements of Mozart and Beethoven, has a subtlety which anticipates that of her compatriot Gabriel Fauré later that century. Farrenc demonstrated mastery of the sonata form in three symphonies and her many chamber music works including two piano trios, and her abundance of piano music, while much of it is comparable to the best of Mendelssohn’s, also shows a distinctly individual and sometimes quite fierce voice such as in the Etudes Op. 26.
Where to start with Louise Farrenc
Piano Works
Konstanze Eickhorst (piano) CPO 9998792
18. Léo Delibes (1836-91)
Why he's here: His ballets Coppélia and Sylvia showcased an exquisite sense of melody and orchestration.
Besides Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky also admired the ballets of Léo Délibes, and indeed met the composer during his 1888 visit to Paris, describing him as among ‘the young musicians…most likeable of all’. Though Delibes wrote several operas, of which Lakmé is the most famous (the Flower Duet being made famous when appropriated by British Airways as its theme tune), it is above all his ballets Coppélia (1870) and Sylvia through which his name endures.
- We named the Flower Duet from Delibes's Lakmé one of the greatest songs about flowers
In these two ballets, Délibes wrote music that was inventive, charming, sophisticated (including the use of leitmotifs in Sylvia) and brilliantly orchestrated in a manner unprecedented in the genre, which inspired Tchaikovsky when composing his ballet masterpieces The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
Where to start with Delibes
Coppélia; La Source (Ballet Suites)
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra/Andrew Mogrelia Naxos 8.553356-57
17. Ernest Chausson (1855-99)
Why he's here: Chausson was a composer of emotional depth, who blended Wagnerian intensity with French lyricism in works like Poème.
Ernest Chausson is perhaps best known for Poème, his fragrantly poignant piece for solo violin and orchestra. Born to a wealthy family, Chausson began his career as a lawyer. Depite this, music held him in thrall. On meeting the composer Vincent d’Indy he was drawn into the circle of the Belgian composer César Franck.
He became harmonically adventurous, on one hand admiring Wagner, and on the other sharing an enthusiasm for Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov with his close friend Debussy.
Chausson’s career was cut short by his premature death from crashing into a wall while going downhill on his bicycle at speed. It may have been deliberate, as Chausson suffered from episodes of depression. He left one symphony, one major opera – Le roi Arthus – and a wealth of songs and other vocal works. His lush Poème de l'amour et de la mer for voice and orchestra is a masterpiece which deserves wider recognition.
Where to start with Chausson
Poème for violin and orchestra
James Ehnes (violin); Quebec Symphony Orchestra/Yoav Talmi Analekta FL 23151
16. Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
Why she's here: One of the first recognized female composers, Jacquet de la Guerre blended virtuosity and emotional depth in her harpsichord and vocal works.
The daughter of an organ builder, Élisabeth Jacquet showed phenomenal gifts from an early age, gaining public recognition by the age of six. At ten years old, her harpsichord playing and singing got her hailed as ‘a wonder’ by the journal Mercure galant.
So impressed was Louis XIV that he placed her in the care of his then mistress, Mme de Montespan, and consistently encouraged her career. Several manuscripts of her works from the 1690s, including of solo and trio sonatas, have survived; and one of her surviving operas, Cephale et Procris, originally performed in Paris at the Académie Royale de Musique in 1694, was revived with huge success in 1989. Her name stands proud with any of her greatest contemporary French composers, and deserves to be better known today.
We named Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre one of the greatest female composers ever
Where to start with Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre
Chamber music
Musica Fiorita, Daniela Dolci (harpsichord) Pan Classics PC10333
Best French composers: the top 15
15. Erik Satie (1866-1925)
Why he's here: An eccentric and minimalist ahead of his time, Satie influenced modern music with his surreal, playful compositions.
After a rather strict, bourgeois upbringing, French composer Erik Satie became a piano student at the Paris Conservatoire. He was soon expelled for unsatisfactory work. He started his career as a café pianist at various establishments, including Le Chat Noir in the city’s bohemian Montmartre district.
While there he wrote some saucy cabaret songs including ‘Je te veux’ and ‘La diva de l’empire’. He also wrote his three Gymnopédies for solo piano. These are timeless, limpid melodies with the simplest accompaniment. They were the total antithesis of the late-Romanticism of Franck and his circle.
Satie became friends with Debussy, had his piano pieces championed by Ravel, and for a while was the spiritual godfather of the rising young French composers known as Les Six – until two of their members, Georges Auric and Francis Poulenc, offended him by sending him a baby rattle on which they had drawn a face and glued on a beard in caricature of Satie’s appearance.
Satie wrote mostly short, pithy pieces. Exceptions include his Dada-ist ballet score for Diaghilev, Parade, which includes parts for typewriter, steamship whistle and siren.
Where to start with Satie
Piano Music, Vol. 1
Noriko Ogawa (piano) BIS 2215
14. Jules Massenet (1848-1912)
Why he's here: A leading opera composer of his time, Massenet infused French lyricism with lush orchestration in Manon and Werther.
Jules Massenet is most widely known for the beguiling ‘Méditation’ for solo violin and orchestra, taken from his opera Thaïs. This, though, is just the tip of a huge iceberg of operatic talent that once commanded the stage at the height of that once great French tradition, Grand Opera.
Of Massenet’s more than thirty operas, two – neither belonging to the Grand Opera tradition – have had more enduring success. Manon (1884) encapsulates the charm and vitality of the Parisian Belle Époque, while Werther (1887) presents a tragic love story. Perhaps Massenet’s greatest and certainly most enduring success, though, was as a teacher: his composition pupils included Gustave Charpentier, Ernest Chausson, Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Pierné.
Where to start with Massenet
Manon
Angela Gheorghiu, Roberto Alagna; Opera de la Monnaie/Antonio Pappano EMI/Warner Classics 456 3892
13. Charles Gounod (1818-93)
Why he's here: Best known for Faust, Gounod blended lyrical charm with religious and operatic drama.
Like Farrenc, Charles Gounod studied composition under Anton Reicha, and seemed set on a brilliant career, not only winning the prestigious Prix de Rome but also praise from such diverse musicians as Berlioz and Mendelssohn. Yet even in his lifetime, his reputation was eclipsed. Of his dozen operas, he is today only widely remembered for Faust (1859), an international hit in its time.
Though it has some of the trappings of Romantic Grand Opera, it includes several moments of distinctly French charm – such as Marguerite’s ‘Jewel Song’ (made notorious by Hergé’s ‘Milanese nightingale’ Bianca Castafiore, who regularly inflicts her interpretation of this showpiece aria.
Where to start with Gounod
Faust
Benjamin Bernheim, Véronique Gens, Andrew Foster-Williams; Les Talens Lyriques/Christophe Rousset
Bru Zane BZ1037
12. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87)
Why he's here: As Louis XIV’s court composer, Lully shaped the grandeur of French Baroque music and pioneered French opera.
Though in fact born in Florence, Italy, Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-87) – composer, dancer, violinist and comedian – can fairly be called the architect of the French national musical style. He became the most powerful musician in France, a true troubadour of the era, and held a virtual monopoly over court music.
The young Giovanni Battista Lulli was aged just 14 when he was sent to Paris as a ‘garçon de chambre’ to Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, a cousin of Louis XIV who was, somewhat dauntingly, known at court as ‘la Grande Mademoiselle’. Described by his royal mistress as a ‘great dancer’, the boy's talents soon became apparent.
Lully's music is known for its power and energy: lively in the fast movements, deep and emotional in the slower. He is also credited with the invention of the French overture, a musical form used extensively in the Baroque and Classical eras, particularly by Handel and Bach. Lully is perhaps most famed for his operas (he is known as the father of French opera). These include Atys, Armide and Alceste.
Lully died from gangrene after driving a conducting stick through his foot.
Where to start with Lully
Alceste
Judith Van Wanroij, Edwin Crossley-Mercer et al; Les Talens Lyriques/ Christophe Rousset
Aparté AP164
Read our review of Les Talens Lyriques' Alceste.
11. Francis Poulenc (1899-1963)
Why he's here: By turns witty and deeply expressive, Poulenc balanced lighthearted charm with religious profundity in his music.
Poulenc’s earliest hit were three piano pieces, Trois mouvements perpétuels, impudent musical doodles written under the influence of Stravinsky and Satie. He was long underestimated by many of his peers, who couldn’t see beyond the clowning mixed with sentimentality in so many of his works.
But gradually a more profound expression became evident. First, this occurred through Poulenc's art songs, in which his genius shone brightest. The strongly contrasting Deux Poèmes de Louis Aragon, composed when Paris had fallen to Nazi Germany, are a fine introduction. His religious works, starting with Litanies à la Vierge Noire, were later composed after the shock of a colleague’s death.
He also wrote several unconventional operas. The surreal Les Mamelles de Tirésias is one such opera, a wild roller-coaster through a wide variety of styles. It travels from the music hall (think Folies Bergère) to devoutly religious – demonstrating Poulenc’s range.
Where to start with Poulenc
Deux Poèmes de Louis Aragon and other songs
Régine Crespin (soprano), John Wustman (piano) Decca 475 7712
We named Régine Crespin one of the greatest sopranos of all time
Best French composers: the top ten
10. Georges Bizet (1838-75)
Why he's here: Though Bizet's career was cut short, Carmen remains one of the most beloved operas of all time.
Georges Bizet died just as he had composed his first great hit, the opera Carmen, with the promise of far greater achievements. A pupil of Charles Gounod, whose symphonies were clearly a model for his own Symphony in C, Bizet wrote his most enduring works in the 1870s.
First came Jeux d’enfants, originally for piano duet but now most famous in the form of an orchestral suite arranged from five of the original 12 movements. Then followed his pithy yet richly evocative incidental music to the play L’Arlésienne. Finally, his great operatic masterpiece Carmen, with its defiant and fiercely independent heroine whose misfortune is to get entangled with a very serious and unworldly soldier who cannot move on when their relationship ends.
Where to start with Bizet
L’Arlésienne Orchestral Suites
Chœur de l’opéra de Lyon; Les Musiciens du Louvre/Marc Minkowski Naïve V5130
9. Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921)
Why he's here: A versatile composer and virtuoso, he combined technical brilliance with elegance in works like The Carnival of the Animals.
Rather like Louise Farrenc's above, Saint-Saëns’s music is quite deceptive. He adored Mozart, and his compositions often aspire to the understated elegance of that Austrian composer. Yet he also took pleasure in the theatrical devilries of Franz Liszt, and in the wild inventiveness of such Russians as Mussorgsky (while also becoming a close friend of Tchaikovsky’s).
That he enjoyed playing with the theatrical trappings of the Romantic pianist-composer is evident in his Piano Concerto No. 2, which even quotes doom-laden chords from Mozart’s Don Giovanni, whose anti-hero is consigned to hell for his refusal to repent of his misdeeds. The final movement is dazzling:
Saint-Saëns was also unostentatiously adventurous: his Piano Concerto No. 5, inspired by his holidays in north Africa, later inspired Ravel with its unusual orchestral effects. Yet Saint-Saëns was capable of writing tenderly lyrical music: most famously ‘The Swan’ in Carnival of the Animals, and also La muse et le poète – a work which has a strong affinity with the work of his beloved pupil, Gabriel Fauré.
We named Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 5 one of the greatest piano concertos of all time.
Where to start with Saint-Saëns
The 5 Piano Concertos, etc
Jean-Philippe Collard; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/André Previn Warner Classics 586 2452
8. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Why he's here: A master of refined harmonies, he crafted deeply lyrical and intimate music, including his ethereal Requiem.
Fauré’s music is generally softly spoken – as was the man himself – the very antithesis of the muscular heroism of a Beethoven. His most famous work, the Requiem, was written he said to ‘console the living’, and breaks convention by not harping on the theme of divine judgement. Fauré’s greatest achievement was in the realm of song, including the song cycle La bonne chanson and such beguiling gems as ‘Les roses d’Ispahan’ and ‘Après une rêve’.
Fauré's chamber music, once you have tuned in to his understated style, has as much emotional power as any of his late-Romantic peers in Germany. Though he wrote relatively little for orchestra, several suites derived from his incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande, Shylock, and Masques et bergamasques are fine alternative introductions to Fauré’s gentle, understated style.
Where to start with Fauré
Pelléas et Mélisande; Masques et bergamasques; Pavane; Ballade
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne/Armin Jordan
Warner Classics 9029544112
7. Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)
Why he's here: A revolutionary music theorist and composer, Rameau transformed French opera with his bold harmonies and dramatic intensity.
While Ravel in the 20th century paid homage to Couperin, Ravel’s contemporary Claude Debussy paid homage to Jean-Philippe Rameau – both in writing and in his music.
Rameau is today most widely remembered as an opera composer, yet he began his career as a prodigiously gifted harpsichord and organ player, studying in Italy as a teenager before working in numerous provincial French towns as an organist. A man of formidable intelligence, his music is both immediate in its expressive communication yet far from predictable, its harmonic strangeness and adventurous nature evident whether played on harpsichord or piano.
Rameau's most successful and today most often performed and recorded work is Les Indes galantes (1735), a colourful, anti-colonialist masterpiece.
Where to start with Rameau
Les Indes galantes
Purcell Choir, Orfeo Orchestra/György Vashegyi
Glossa GCD924005
6. François Couperin (1668-1733)
Why he's here: A key figure in French Baroque keyboard music, Couperin merged elegance with profound expressiveness.
https://www.classical-music.com/articles/four-composers-court-louis-xivFrançois Couperin is legendary among French composers of the Baroque era (in his honour, Maurice Ravel, almost 200 years after Couperin’s death, named his neo-Baroque suite Le Tombeau de Couperin). Couperin was chief harpsichordist and organist at the court of Louis XIV, and while serving that monarch composed sacred music, chamber music and, above all, several volumes of keyboard works.
His most performed ‘hit’ is the enigmatically titled ‘Les Baricades mistérieuses’ (The mysterious barriers), possibly referring to the fact that its beguiling melody forever straddles across the bar-lines. Though originally written for harpsichord, it works beautifully on lute or the modern guitar – which might be preferred by those yet to acquire a taste for harpsichord. Couperin’s sacred music is also beautiful and well worth hearing, as are his Nouveaux Concerts.
Where to start with Couperin
Nouveaux Concerts
Thomas Indermühnle (oboe), Henk de Wit (bassoon), Ursula Dütschler (harpsichord) Camerata CM 15045-6
Best French composers : the top five
5. Pierre Boulez (1925-2016)
Why he's here: Boulez was a radical innovator who pushed the boundaries of composition, conducting, and electronic music.
A pupil of Messiaen’s, Boulez was provocative and confrontational in his youth. In 1945, he organised a group of students to boo and disrupt the French premiere of Stravinsky’s Four Norwegian Moods. Oh, and he also called for the demolition of all opera houses. Violence was a persistent theme of his early works, such as Le Visage nuptial, Le Soleil des eaux and his Piano Sonata No. 2.
After this brutalist phase, Boulez began to explore ground common to that of his great forebears Debussy and Ravel: Le Marteau sans maître (1955) is scored for soprano and an ensemble of alto flute, viola, guitar and percussion instruments including various types of mallet percussion (vibraphone, xylorimba, etc), claves, bongos and maracas.
This was followed by Pli selon pli (1963, then revised several times), again for soprano and an augmented version of the ensemble used in the earlier work. This time though, there was the notable addition of piano, harps and brass instruments.
By the 1960s, Boulez was part of the establishment, much in demand as a conductor – including several engagements at Wagner’s festival in Bayreuth. In 1970 the French government invited Boulez to create the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) with generous state subsidy. By the end of his career, he was writing remarkably idiomatic pieces such as Anthemes I for solo violin.
Where to start with Boulez
Pli selon pli
Christine Schäfer (soprano); Ensemble InterContemporain/Pierre Boulez
Deutsche Grammophon 471 344
4. Olivier Messiaen (1908-92)
Why he's here: A deeply spiritual composer, Messiaen fused birdsong, complex rhythms, and mysticism into groundbreaking works.
Like the Russian composer Scriabin, the mystical Catholic composer Olivier Messiaen radically transformed his music through his assimilation and invention of modes well outside the standard Western tradition. These were derived partly from his own studies of such modernists as Stravinsky and Bartók, but perhaps most strikingly from traditional music from the Andes, Bali, India and Japan.
Common to the modes he favoured were their inclusion of the tritone, a pair of notes conventionally considered dissonant and even evil – therefore known as the diabolus in musica – but which Messiaen considered to be divine. That interval flavours nearly all his music from the 1930s onwards. To this, the French composer added his growing obsession with birdsong. He meticulously notated and included this in his music from the 1940s.
What truly makes Messiaen’s music, though, is his chef-like flair in making truly exotic and flavoursome musical dishes out of these ingredients. This is heard to wonderful effect in his extraordinary, exotic Turangalîla-Sinfonie - have a listen below.
Where to start with Messiaen
Organ works
Simon Preston (organ) Eloquence 482 4917
3. Hector Berlioz (1803-69)
Why he's here: A visionary orchestrator and Romantic trailblazer, his Symphonie fantastique redefined programmatic music.
Though in many ways atypical of French composers, the impact Hector Berlioz has had on music outside France – most particularly in Russia – is such that no selection of major French composers could be without him. He was a fiery Romantic who embraced the extremes of human experience.
That fire and passion are evident most famously in his Symphonie fantastique, but also in his dramatic oratorio La damnation de Faust and even his Requiem – he also furthered the limpid expressiveness of Gluck (a bête noire of Debussy’s) in many of his songs and arias.
Where to start with Berlioz
La damnation de Faust
Michael Spyres (Faust), Joyce DiDonato (Marguerite) et al; Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra/John Nelson Erato 9029541735
2. Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Why he's here: Ravel was az master of orchestration and form, who crafted a raft of shimmering, evocative works from Boléro to Daphnis et Chloé.
Long regarded – mostly without justification – as a would-be rival of fellow French composer Debussy’s, Maurice Ravel is now recognised as a great master in his own right. While he deeply admired Debussy’s orchestral Nocturnes, which influenced some of his works such as Rapsodie espagnole, Ravel had earlier relished the works of Chabrier and Satie, and later took an interest in other composers such as Schoenberg, Stravinsky (a personal friend), Béla Bartók and George Gershwin, borrowing ideas and transforming them into his own style.
Stravinsky once described him as ‘the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers’ – every one of Ravel’s works is indeed fastidiously crafted with not a wasted note or effect. His music exemplifies ‘art concealing art’: the lovely and ever-growing melody that opens the slow movement of his G major Piano Concerto sounds like an inspired improvisation – yet Ravel confessed ‘That flowing phrase! How I worked over it bar by bar! It nearly killed me!’
Where to start with Ravel
Piano works
Steven Osborne
Hyperion CDA 67731/2
1. Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Why he's here: The father of Impressionism, Debussy revolutionized harmony and texture in pieces like 'Clair de Lune' and Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune.
Claude Debussy was both a sensualist and a perfectionist. Though he hated being defined as an ‘impressionist’, he shared with those painters an extraordinary ability to translate different qualities of natural lighting into his work, whether the dazzling sunshine of his piano showpiece L’isle joyeuse, or the ominous clouds which define an otherwise clear night sky in ‘Nuages’, the opening movement of his orchestral Nocturnes.
He also delighted in sonority for its own sake, divorced from the academic necessities of resolution: in this, he found common ground in Javanese gamelan and in Musorgsky’s extraordinary use of bell-like harmony in the Coronation scene of Boris Godunov. The harmonic world he created from all these ingredients was uniquely his, until his music inspired a host of imitators. Yet none of them quite achieved the limpid perfection of his final sonatas, most particularly the Sonata for Flute, Viola and Harp.
A huge figure in the history of classical music., Debussy finishes strongly in our list of the 50 greatest composers of all time.
Where to start with Debussy
Piano works
Angela Hewitt
Hyperion CDA 67898
Three Late Sonatas
Isabelle Faust (violin), Magali Mosnier (flute), Antoine Tamestit (viola), Alexander Melnikov (piano), Xavier de Maistre (harp), etc.
Harmonia Mundi HMM902303
