Bourgault had an immense interest in foreign music, but one of his more obsessive interests lay in pentatonic Eastern scales. Anachronistic for the time, he composed a two-part work in 1882 called "Rapsodie cambodgienne" with genuine gamelan instruments and Cambodian musical themes. The eventual performance of this piece in 1889 was spurred on by Bourgault and Debussy's attending of the World's Fair in Paris during the latter half of 1889. Between 1883 and 1892 Bourgault met with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky a number of times to discuss the burgeoning Russian composers as well as each composer's endeavours.