Success Quote by Maurice Ravel

Ravel lands the line like a perfectly timed dissonance: a warning dressed up as a compliment, with just enough self-mockery to keep it from sounding sanctimonious. On the surface, he is cautioning an American composer (the Gershwin backstory is hard to miss) against studying with him. The real move is subtler: he refuses the prestige economy where “European training” is treated as an artistic upgrade. Ravel is saying the upgrade might be a downgrade.

The jab works because it flips the usual hierarchy. “First-rate Gershwin” positions jazz-inflected American modernity not as a charming sidebar to the serious tradition, but as a peak achievement in its own right. “Second-rate Ravel” is the knife twist: imitation isn’t homage, it’s dilution. It’s also Ravel protecting what he recognizes as Gershwin’s scarce resource - idiom. Spontaneity here isn’t mere looseness; it’s the living pulse of a vernacular language. Once you start writing toward someone else’s grammar, your work can get technically “better” while becoming artistically less necessary.

Context matters: the early 20th century was full of composers anxiously negotiating influence, nationalism, and the rising legitimacy of American popular forms. Ravel, often stereotyped as the immaculate craftsman, makes an unusually punk argument: don’t apprentice yourself into polish. The most sophisticated thing you can do is remain unmistakably yourself, even if the academy can’t quite grade it.