played by Frank Laffitte
French piano music has a style and charm of its own and it owes very little or nothing to the influences of the great German composers of the nineteenth century. It has created its own tradition, which harks back to the time of Rameau and CouperifT. Today's programme is representative of modem French music, the most considerable composer being Debussy, whose influence on his contemporaries and successors, both as a player and as a composer, has been of far-reaching importance.