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Between Exoticism and Imagination Montreal
Maison Symphonique, Place des Arts
11/11/2026 -
Thierry Pécou: Cara Bali Concerto
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade, Op. 35
Alexandre Tharaud (piano)
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Dina Gilbert (conductor)
D. Gilbert (© Antoine Saito)
Every major symphony orchestra has an obligation to commission and perform contemporary music. Supporting living composers is essential if orchestras are to remain vibrant institutions rather than become custodians of a repertory performed ad nauseam. Younger audiences, too, should be reminded that orchestral music did not cease to evolve centuries ago. Yet new works must be programmed on their merits. Artistic administrators might reasonably ask whether a composition is likely to enjoy a life beyond its premiere and whether it possesses sufficient musical substance to engage a broad audience. Novelty, after all, is not synonymous with originality.
Wednesday evening’s Canadian premiere of Thierry Pécou’s Cara Bali Concerto, featuring French pianist Alexandre Tharaud, offered a rather unfortunate illustration.
Before the music, the audience endured an unnecessary address by the orchestra’s president, determined to remind us of the OSM’s recent California engagements and the critical acclaim bestowed upon this venerable institution. An ensemble that enjoys the stature of the OSM needs no such public assurance, especially considering that Los Angeles and San Diego are not Vienna or Berlin. This was followed by an improvised, centre‑stage interview between the composer and a designated interlocutor. The exercise had all the spontaneity and excitement of an entire laundry cycle. An increasingly restless audience was evidently eager to get on with the concert. Why should listeners be instructed in a work’s merits before having heard it? Surely the music should make its own case. This pointless, distinctly promotional exercise might better have been reserved for a Radio‑Canada (Canada’s public broadcaster) cultural programme.
Born in 1965, Pécou studied composition and orchestration at the Paris Conservatoire. His musical imagination has long extended beyond the conventional boundaries of Western classical music, embracing pre‑Columbian American civilizations, Amerindian traditions, African influences, ancient China and Tibetan mysticism. He founded Ensemble Zellig in 1999 and Ensemble Variances in 2009, the latter devoted to encounters between contemporary composition and oral musical traditions.
Composed in 2020, Cara Bali Concerto draws inspiration from Balinese gamelan, particularly the Gong Kebyar tradition. Commissioned jointly by the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Opéra de Rouen Normandie and BBC Radio 3, it received its world premiere in Lyon on 28 April 2022, with Tharaud as soloist, the Orchestre National de Lyon and Ben Glassberg conducting.
Pécou’s relationship with Tharaud is particularly close. The pianist was the dedicatee and an important instigator of the composer’s earlier piano concertos, L’Oiseau innumérable (2006) and Le Visage, le Cœur (2013). Cara Bali continues this collaboration, its writing conceived with Tharaud’s particular pianistic capabilities in mind.
Pécou’s interest in gamelan developed through scholarly research and recordings, including the writings of Canadian ethnomusicologist Michael Tenzer. Interestingly, the composer has never visited Bali. His intention was not to imitate its music but to explore its underlying principles: interlocking rhythmic patterns, recurring cycles articulated by gong strokes (colotomic structure), and the distinctive seven‑note pelog scale. The piano itself becomes an essentially percussive instrument, evoking the metallic resonances of gongs and metallophones.
These are intellectually intriguing premises. Unfortunately, their realization proved considerably less compelling.
I have always welcomed adventurous music. Among the composers whose works I particularly cherish are Stravinsky, Bartók, Shostakovich, Penderecki and Britten. Nor do I object to dissonance or harmonic experimentation. But musical invention must offer more than an accumulation of unusual sonorities. Melody, structural coherence and the capacity to sustain a listener’s attention remain perfectly legitimate artistic considerations.
Despite some attractive moments towards the conclusion, Pécou’s concerto failed to inspire. Its two movements, both marked Vivace, presented a succession of rhythmic and orchestral effects that never developed into a convincing musical argument. The gamelan influence was evident, and the percussion occasionally produced interesting colours, but restless activity prevailed over dramatic or emotional substance.
Tharaud, whose pianistic accomplishments are beyond dispute, was regrettably under‑utilized. He dispatched the formidable technical demands with assurance, but a pianist of his distinction deserved more substantial material. The piano’s predominantly percussive role offered disappointingly little of the sustained pianistic interest one expects from a rewarding concerto. Many in the audience had undoubtedly come to hear Tharaud; they left with little of the pleasure they had anticipated. The problem was not technical difficulty but musical substance. For all its rhythmic intricacies and elaborate orchestration, the work ultimately became an exercise in endurance.
The enthusiastic reception accorded to the composer at the conclusion prompted an uncomfortable question: had the audience not known that Pécou was present, would the ovation have been quite so generous? Montrealers are commendably supportive of their cultural institutions, but there is a difference between encouraging contemporary composition and being gently persuaded to applaud it. The OSM should certainly continue championing new music, but truly innovative works ought to stand on their own merits, without elaborate promotional exercises or standing ovations that seem almost prescribed in advance.
Fortunately, the second half provided a thoroughly exhilarating corrective.
Completed in 1888 and premiered in Saint Petersburg that October, Rimsky‑Korsakov’s Scheherazade remains one of the supreme achievements of nineteenth-century orchestral writing. A central member of the Russian nationalist circle known as the Mighty Handful, Rimsky‑Korsakov possessed an extraordinary gift for orchestral colour, subsequently codified in his influential Principles of Orchestration. His ability to conjure entire musical landscapes through instrumental timbre has seldom been surpassed.
Inspired by The Thousand and One Nights, the composition evokes the world of sultans, sailors, princesses and enchanted landscapes. Its framing narrative concerns Sultan Shahryar, who, convinced of women’s infidelity, vows to execute each new bride after their wedding night. Scheherazade, the vizier’s daughter, volunteers to marry him and saves herself by telling stories whose conclusions she continually postpones until the following evening. Her ingenuity ultimately transforms the Sultan’s murderous intentions.
Rather than provide literal musical illustrations of individual tales, Rimsky‑Korsakov constructed four interconnected movements, united by recurring themes and an extraordinarily rich orchestral imagination. The opening juxtaposes the Sultan’s imposing, ominous motif with Scheherazade’s sinuous violin melody, accompanied by harp. This recurring solo theme becomes the musical embodiment of the storyteller herself.
The movements evoke, successively, “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship”, “The Story of the Kalender Prince”, “The Young Prince and the Young Princess”, and the spectacular “Festival at Baghdad”, culminating in the shipwreck and the return of the sea. The lyrical third movement provides a particularly beautiful contrast to the turbulent episodes surrounding it, while the finale brings the principal musical ideas together in a magnificent orchestral apotheosis.
The work also invites consideration of nineteenth-century Orientalism. Its imagined East, associated with sensuality, mystery, danger and exotic splendour, reflects a European artistic tradition rather than an authentic representation of Middle Eastern musical culture. Rimsky‑Korsakov’s achievement lies precisely in transforming this European fantasy into an enduring orchestral masterpiece.
Dina Gilbert was in complete command of the OSM. The orchestra’s Associate Conductor, she is also Music Director of the Walla Walla Symphony and Principal Conductor of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Having recently led the orchestra in Songes d’une nuit d’été, she again demonstrated her communicative energy, precision and expressive musicianship.
Her interpretation revealed a firm grasp of the score’s architecture. The orchestra responded with evident enthusiasm, its musicians seemingly delighted to immerse themselves in a composition offering such an abundance of melodic invention and orchestral opportunity. The opening was suitably imposing, and the dialogue between the Sultan’s threatening motif and Scheherazade’s violin theme was clearly articulated.
Olivier Thouin, the OSM’s associate concertmaster, was truly outstanding. His solo playing combined elegance, expressive warmth and technical assurance, giving Scheherazade’s recurring theme an unmistakable personality. The interplay between violin, harp and lower strings was particularly beautiful, while the woodwind solos added further refinement to the orchestral tapestry.
Gilbert’s command of dynamics was especially impressive. She elicited breathtaking contrasts between delicately shaded passages and tumultuous orchestral outbursts, never sacrificing clarity for sheer volume. The brass and percussion were magnificent, and the final movement built inexorably towards a spectacular conclusion. All four movements were performed impeccably, with the audience mercifully refraining from applause between them and allowing the musical narrative to unfold uninterrupted.
The standing ovation that followed was thoroughly deserved.
The evening thus offered two contrasting visions of musical imagination and cultural inheritance. Pécou sought new possibilities in the rhythmic and sonic world of Balinese gamelan; Rimsky‑Korsakov transformed the European imagination of the Orient into one of the repertoire’s most enduring orchestral fantasies. One failed to convince; the other demonstrated why certain masterpieces remain impervious to the passage of time. The OSM deserves credit for championing contemporary composition, but Wednesday evening was also a reminder that adventurous programming requires equally discerning artistic judgement. Scheherazade needed no introduction, no interview and certainly no encouragement.
Ossama el Naggar
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