The first French composer to take to the road (6)
I believe the answer is:
travel
'road' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'the first french composer to take to' is the wordplay.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'first' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'french composer' becomes 'Ravel' (Maurice Ravel).
'take' suggests deleting specific letters.
't'+'ravel'+'to'='travelto'
'travelto' with 'to' taken out is 'TRAVEL'.
'the' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for travel that I've seen before include "Go on a trip" , "tour" , "Move from one place to another" , "Movement from one place to another" , "Varlet (anag.)" .)