text: Ravel's tour reignited Gershwin's desire to return to Paris, which he and his brother Ira did after meeting Ravel.Ravel's high praise of Gershwin in an introductory letter to Nadia Boulanger caused Gershwin to seriously consider taking much more time to study abroad in Paris.Yet after he played for her, she told him she could not teach him.Boulanger gave Gershwin basically the same advice she gave all her accomplished master students: "What could I give you that you haven't already got?" 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 to follow his Rhapsody in Blue.Paris at this time hosted many expatriate writers, among them Ezra Pound, W.B.Yeats, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald and artist Pablo Picasso.Composition Gershwin based An American in Paris on a melodic fragment called "Very Parisienne", written in 1926 on his first visit to Paris as a gift to his hosts, Robert and Mabel Schirmer.Gershwin called it "a rhapsodic ballet"; it is written freely and in a much more modern idiom than his prior works.Gershwin explained in Musical America, "My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere." The piece is structured into five sections, which culminate in a loose A–B–A format.Gershwin's first A episode introduces the two main "walking" themes in the "Allegretto grazioso" and develops a third theme in the "Subito con brio".The style of this A section is written in the typical French style of composers Claude Debussy and Les Six.This A section featured duple meter, singsong rhythms, and diatonic melodies with the sounds of oboe, English horn, and taxi horns.The B section's "Andante ma con ritmo deciso" introduces the American Blues and spasms of homesickness.