And, certainly, nothing so much reveals Ravel the peer of Debussy as the
fact that he has succeeded so beautifully in manifesting what is
peculiar to him. For he is by ten years Debussy's junior, and were he
less positive an individuality, less original a temperament, less fully
the genius, he could never have realized himself. There would have
descended upon him the blight that has fallen upon so many of the
younger Parisian composers less determinate than he and like himself
made of one stuff with Debussy. He, too, would have permitted the art of
the older and well-established man to impose upon him. He, too, would
have betrayed his own cause in attempting to model himself upon the
other man. But Debussy has not swerved nor hampered Ravel any more than
has his master, Gabriel Faure. He is too sturdily set in his own
direction. From the very commencement of his career, from the time when
he wrote the soft and hesitating and nevertheless already very personal
"Pavane pour une Infante defunte," he has maintained himself proudly
against his great collateral, just as he has maintained himself against
what is false and epicene in the artistic example of Faure. Within their
common limits, he has realized himself as essentially as Debussy has
done.
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