Pierre Gallon, harpsichordist with the Ensemble Pygmalion, embodies a generation of musicians who are reviving early music with an approach that is both rigorous and passionate. Immersed from childhood in a musical world where the harpsichord resonated alongside his father’s lute, Gallon has made this instrument his preferred means of expression since the age of nine. Now a member of the ensemble founded by Raphaël Pichon 20 years ago, he participates in the exploration of musical connections that drives Pygmalion, a quest to understand how the music of the past can still speak to us today.
In the lead up to Ensemble Pygmalion’s first Australian concerts at the Adelaide Festival in March 2026, we chat with Pierre Gallon to explore his career, his philosophy of historical performance and the three ambitious programmes that the ensemble will present to Australian audiences. In this first part of our two-part interview, he talks about his training, his influences and the challenges of performing on historical instruments.
Pierre, you grew up in a home filled with all kinds of instruments and discovered the harpsichord at a very young age. How did your early musical environment shape your relationship with the harpsichord? When did you realise that it was your favourite instrument or your natural means of expression?
Well, first of all, this musical environment shaped my relationship with music in general, rather than the harpsichord in particular, because in my family, my father is also a musician and my mother, although not a musician, is a great music lover. She listened to a lot of music, and we listened to music all the time, There was always a lot of music at home, so we sang a lot.
When I was really little, my father was a music teacher in schools for young children who didn’t have access to music schools, conservatories and so on, in completely isolated rural areas where there isn’t much going on and where children don’t have the means or the social environment to access music. So he had a small van. And in his van, he had drums, xylophones, small ukuleles, all kinds of flutes, bird callers.
A van full of instruments.
Exactly, a van full of instruments. And that was like a playground for me, from a very young age. And so our family life was set to the rhythm of music, singing, etc. So I started playing music very early on, even before I went to school, I knew how to read music before I knew how to read words.
To that extent!
To that extent. And in the end, I don’t even remember when I started playing music. I feel like I’ve always played music.
I don’t even remember when I started playing music. I feel like I’ve always played music.
Almost like being born with an instrument in your hands
Exactly. And so I started playing the violin because I don’t know what goes through our minds when we’re children. Why the violin? And little by little, I loved playing the keyboard. Whenever there was a keyboard, I found it to be a wonderful world that had many more possibilities than the violin, which was perhaps a little more difficult to access but more direct. With the violin, you have to take it out of its case and tune it. You have to tune the bow, put colophony on it – that resin you put on the bow hair so that it sticks to the string. In any case, with the violin, there’s a whole lot to do before you can play. And then you make horrible noises. And the piano is there in the house, it’s in the middle of the room. And then you press the key. It’s right, it’s beautiful. And that completely fascinated me. And I found it easy if I heard something on the radio, tap tap tap on the piano. It seemed so, so easy to reproduce things that I really wanted to play the keyboard.
And the piano is there in the house, it’s in the middle of the room. And then you press the key. It’s right, it’s beautiful. And that completely fascinated me.
And the harpsichord was the keyboard I heard at home. Because my father, in addition to the job I told you about, is a lutist, a lute player. So we heard a lot of Renaissance music, a lot of Baroque music at home. And the harpsichord was the keyboard I was most familiar with. So I said, well, I’ll take harpsichord lessons. And then I met a harpsichord teacher who was amazing and who opened up an incredible world of sounds, culture, history and aesthetics to me. When I was nine years old, it was love at first sight. And that love has never left me.
I met a harpsichord teacher who was amazing and who opened up an incredible world of sounds, culture, history and aesthetics to me. When I was nine years old, it was love at first sight. And that love has never left me.
That’s good. It’s quite rare that you like something as much as an adult as a a child.
Yes, it’s very lucky.
And you studied with Olivier Beaumont and Blandine Rannou at the Paris Conservatory. Which of your teachers’ teachings or philosophies had the most lasting impact on you, both technically and artistically?
Ah, that’s a good question, because I had these two teachers who were the ones who perhaps completed my course, who completed my studies. But all the teachers I had taught me something very special. And that too is something of a stroke of luck that I had and that not everyone has. All the teachers I had complemented each other very well. So, the first teacher I had when I started, whom I mentioned to you, who is not one of the people you mentioned, but who is from Quebec, whose name was Bibiane Lapointe, who was, and still is, a wonderful harpsichordist and an incredibly patient and skilled teacher, who gave me a technical foundation, a foundation in working techniques that is still almost the only one I know today, and who gave me an incredible foundation that allowed me to enter the Paris Conservatoire with the teachers you mentioned, and at the same time, Blandine and Olivier are two very different types of teachers.
Olivier Beaumont is a very cerebral person, extremely intelligent, extremely cultured, someone who also knows the history of the instrument very, very well, the historical context in which the instrument evolved, the aesthetics. He is very knowledgeable about literature, painting and architecture. He is someone who has given me a very comprehensive and rich education in relation to the harpsichord. And that is something that is absolutely essential when you play early music, because the repertoire is so distant when you play music from the 16th or 17th century. It’s not the same as playing Brahms or Rachmaninov, where you have an almost generational connection with these composers. And when you play music from the 16th century, it’s so distant that if you want to approach this music with as much authenticity as possible, you have to approach it with much more distance, and you have to take into account literature, painting, architecture, perhaps the political context. And that’s very important. And Olivier was a very, very great teacher in this respect, in that he managed to put the harpsichord in a much more general perspective rather than a very focused one.
And when you play music from the 16th century, it’s so distant that if you want to approach this music with as much authenticity as possible, you have to approach it with much more distance, and you have to take into account literature, painting, architecture, perhaps the political context.
And Blandine Rannou, she was more of a harpsichord accompaniment teacher. She has a much more instinctive relationship with the instrument. She is a very, very great artist; an incredible artist who awakened the artist within me. “OK, you know how to play the harpsichord, you know what your scores are saying. Now you have to create a meeting point between this music, this instrument that you know so well, and what lies deep within you. And so we’re going to find what lies deep within you so that this music tells a story that is personal and intimate, and so that your history and your personality can tell the story of this music. So you see, it’s an approach that has nothing to do with Olivier Beaumont’s approach, but which is very complementary and which, even today, continues to nourish me.
Both can also help with the work you do with the Pygmalion ensemble, which plays historical music and also tries to find connections between musicians.
Yes, absolutely. And it’s funny because I’d never really thought about it, but in a way, Raphaël Pichon is a bit of a mixture of all the teachers I’ve had. Someone with truly exceptional technique, working technique, conducting technique, and group management skills too. That’s important when you’re a conductor, knowing how to manage a whole group, undeniable human qualities – that’s perhaps my first teacher. Then he’s someone who is cultured – he’s someone you can talk to about absolutely anything: philosophy, painting. You can also talk about cinema, you can talk about TV series, you can even talk about sport. They are someone who has an extremely broad curiosity about themselves and the world, who is very appreciative and, above all, an incredible artist.
You’ll see in Adelaide in March, it will be very warm, but you’ll see that even in winter here, after ten minutes, he’s completely drenched, because he lives his art with a passion that is very personal but which he manages to convey not only to his musicians but also to the audience. And that’s it, he’s a great, a great joy. And also to be able to weave together what I learned in my studies and put it all into practice with this ensemble.
after ten minutes, he’s completely drenched, because he lives his art with a passion that is very personal but which he manages to convey not only to his musicians but also to the audience.
And how long have you been in Ensemble Pygmalion?
So I’ve been there for 16 years. So the ensemble will be 20 years old in 2026. I wasn’t there at the very beginning, but I remember the early days of Pygmalion. I went to see them in concert several times and told them that when I grew up, I would be a Pygmalion musician. I’m joking a little, but in any case, it was an ensemble that I really admired, and it was a great joy to join them a few years later.
I wasn’t there at the very beginning, but I remember the early days of Pygmalion. I went to see them in concert several times and told them that when I grew up, I would be a Pygmalion musician
With Ensemble Pygmalion, you perform early music on period instruments. What are the main technical or interpretative challenges you face? How do you resolve them with the ensemble, and why do you do it that way?
I couldn’t possibly list all the technical challenges, there are so many, but in fact it’s a bit like what I was saying earlier about how this music is very old and that to understand it, you have to work a bit like a detective. There’s something there, you have to look for clues wherever you can find them. Earlier, we talked about painting, architecture, literature, politics and so on. And the instruments themselves are also full of clues. Obviously, the classics, the keyboard family, harpsichords, organs, but also all the instruments in the violin family – violins, cellos, violas da gamba. The entire viola da gamba family. All the wind instruments, recorders, oboes, bassoons and so on – these are all tools that have sometimes survived to this day, not always in a condition where they can be played, but in museums, where we can see them and say, “Oh, look! This violin, for example, is much less tense than a modern violin. The strings are made of a different material. The bow is not a very long bow with a curve like this, but a shorter bow with a curve like this.”
So what do we do with that? We try it out, we listen. What does it sound like? Ah, that’s interesting, I’m lost. But what does it mean? When I play do re mi fa sol on my modern instrument and when I play do re mi fa sol on my old instrument, what changes? What can I understand about early music thanks to this tool? I remember when I was at the conservatory in Paris, I had a teacher who taught us how to tune harpsichords, and this gentleman was himself a harpsichord maker. He told us that he had learned a lot thanks to tools. He had found some old tools. His father was a clockmaker, and he said, ‘Well, I was happy to have my father’s tools.’ I didn’t really know what they were for, but suddenly I picked up the tool and the tool guided my hand, and the instruments we use to play early music know how to guide our hands. Very often it is an intelligence of experience that adds to intellectual experience, if you like. And the two are intimately linked and cannot function without each other.
I didn’t really know what they were for, but suddenly I picked up the tool and the tool guided my hand, and the instruments we use to play early music know how to guide our hands.
To have an idea about early music that isn’t expressed physically, almost sensually, wouldn’t make sense. And then to simply play the instruments without having many ideas formed wouldn’t really make sense either. So I don’t know if that really answers your questions, but obviously there are technical challenges because, like us, we know nothing about this music, it’s so old. The people who make our instruments don’t know anything about these instruments either. We try, we have ideas, we have leads, we try things out. Sometimes it hits the mark, as they say. It works perfectly. Sometimes it misses the mark, and we move forward like that, trying things out.
I remember when we premiered Rossi’s L’Orfeo, which we’re going to perform in Adelaide, we premiered this work in 2015, I think, or maybe 2016. Raphaël had asked that – this is just one example, but it’s an example, there are dozens of others like it – he had asked the violas da gamba to have all their strings made of bare gut, if that means anything to you. But no metal strings, only gut strings, including on the bass strings, which therefore become very, very thick strings. We know that’s how it was back then. No idea how it’s going to sound, no idea how difficult or easy it’s going to be to play. Arbitrarily, a little foolishly, we decide that’s how we’re going to do it and we’ll see, and we have time to work on it and we’ll see what it says. So some people were very enthusiastic, and then there were some who were a little sceptical, there were some who said, ‘Ah! It’s a nice challenge!’, and then there were others who found it a little difficult compared to what they were used to. But everyone played along and we said, ‘Come on, OK, let’s do it.’
All the violists played with their natural gut strings and so on. And well, at first it was a bit strange: the sound was less easy to develop and there were perhaps more problems with intonation, etc. But then, over time, we realised that it gave a kind of grain to the sound that was very interesting, that there were things that were no longer possible to do. And so that meant we didn’t have to do them, since they were impossible to do. And then suddenly there are things, the tool that guides the hand, as I was saying earlier. And then, suddenly, that low string allows me to produce a sound that I’ve never been able to get out of my instrument before. And so all of these are technical challenges, but challenges that allow us to move forward in this great puzzle we’re trying to piece together. So it’s all very interesting. So here, I’m just talking about bowed string instruments, violas da gamba and so on. But all these technical challenges are there on the harpsichord, on the recorders, everywhere. Yes, but each technical challenge overcome is another clue that helps us to better understand this music.
each technical challenge overcome is another clue that helps us to better understand this music.
Yes, it’s interesting that if you have the right tool, it really helps you play differently than you’re used to.
Absolutely. I know that when I have a piano, which you can see here. I’m a harpsichordist, I’ve never taken a piano lesson in my life, but I think it’s fun to have a piano, so I have a piano. For example, when I play Bach’s music on the harpsichord, I feel like I understand something about it. And I’m just Pierre Galand, but when I play Bach on the harpsichord, there’s something that feels right, that I’m able to do well. And when I play the same score on the piano, it’s still me, with my understanding, my history with this composer, with this music, etc. but when I play it on the piano, there’s nothing I can do about it. Something doesn’t work as well because, on the one hand, it’s an instrument that I don’t have complete control over, and on the other hand, it’s an instrument that doesn’t perfectly suit this music.
when I play it on the piano, there’s nothing I can do about it. Something doesn’t work as well because, on the one hand, it’s an instrument that I don’t have complete control over, and on the other hand, it’s an instrument that doesn’t perfectly suit this music.
And the period.
That’s the period. Of course, there are wonderful pianists who play Bach beautifully on the piano, but in my personal experience, when I play the same piece on the harpsichord and on the piano, there is a clear fit between the instrument and the music. And I think the audience can sense that when they hear a Bach cantata played on period instruments or a Bach cantata played on modern instruments, there is something about this music that is expressed differently.
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In the second part of this interview, Pierre Gallon will take us behind the scenes of the three shows that Pygmalion will present in Adelaide: Monteverdi’s Vespers, Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo and the Good Night World programme dedicated to Bach and his predecessors. Coming soon.
KEY INFO FOR ENSEMBLE PYGMALION CONCERTS AT ADELAIDE FESTIVAL 2026
Bach : Good Night World
WHEN:
- Friday 27 February 7pm
- Saturday 28 February 1pm
WHERE: Adelaide Town Hall
HOW MUCH:
Adult Premium $139 | A Res $129 | B Res $119
Friends Premium $118 | A Res $110 | B Res $101 $
Concession A Res $103 | B Res $95
Under 40 B Res $40
Full time student A Res A $40 | B Res $40
HOW: Buy your tickets via this link
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Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo
WHEN
- Wednesday 4 March 7pm
- Friday 6 March 7pm
WHERE: Adelaide Town Hall
HOW MUCH:
Adult Premium 159 $ | Res A 139 $| Res B 129 $
Friends Premium 135 $ | Res A 118 $ | Res B 110 $
Concession Res A 112 $ | Res B 103 $
Under 40 B Res $40
Full-time student A Res $40 | B Res $40
HOW: Buy your tickets via this link
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Monteverdi’s Vespers – these concerts are already booked out
WHEN:
- Monday 2 March 8pm
- Tuesday 3 March 8pm
WHERE: St Peter’s Cathedral, North Adelaide
HOW: Check for a possible waitlist via this link
