Achim Breiling  runs off an impressive list of  German and Austrians moderns
to rival  American and British lists.previously submitted. It occurs to me
that the French have a few  names that surely qualify as heavweights, eg,
Milhaud, Honnegger, Germaine Tailleferre, Auric, Francaix, Ibert,
Poulenc,Satie, Ravel, Roussel. Moreover, they  share an air that sets them
apart from others but which also sets them
 together-- as what, as French? Of course the Americans have composers that
sound American, and the British have some that sound very British indeed, and
the Germans/Austrians have some that sound national--but the French strike me
as more uniformly French.

Denis Fodor



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