Background
Maurice Ravel met Gershwin in New York during Ravel's tour of the United States. In that meeting, Gershwin asked Ravel to be his teacher, to which Ravel responded that it was better to be a first-rate Gershwin than it was to be a second-rate Ravel. Instead, Ravel recommended that Gershwin see Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Ravel's high praise of Gershwin in an introductory letter to Boulanger caused Gershwin to seriously consider taking time to study abroad in Paris.
Gershwin arrived in Paris in March 1928. Paris at this time hosted many expatriate writers: Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway; and artist Pablo Picasso. Gershwin met with Boulanger and at her request he played ten minutes of his music. Boulanger replied that she had nothing to teach him. This did not set Gershwin back, as his real intent abroad was to complete a new work based on Paris and perhaps a second rhapsody for piano and orchestra.
Read more about this topic: An American In Paris
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