CBC Records has come out with a new Hétu CD of four of his concertos. Performed by the CBC Radio Orchestra under conductor Mario Bernardi, it features soloists André Laplante on piano, Robert Cram on flute, Joaquin Valdepeñas on clarinet and Christopher Millard on bassoon. As is usual for Hétu, the works are all commissions from specific artists or orchestras.

The oldest work is from 1979, and was commissioned by bassoonist George Zukerman. He premiered it the following year as the Bassoon Concerto, Op. 31. The newest piece was written 20 years later for the Esprit Orchestra and MusicCanadaMusique 2000 as Piano Concerto No. 2, Po. 64. André Laplante premiered the work, and now performs it on this CD.

It is quite interesting to compare the two pieces, both written in the classic three-movement-form, as are the remaining two. Although the featured instruments are vastly different—bassoon and piano—the approach to the two concertos is undeniably that of the same composer. His musical and emotional signatures are "visible", something one likes to experience from a mature composer. The work composed in 1999, which is the opening piece on the CD, shows the composer stretching the limits, so to speak. He challenges both performers and listeners far more than in the earlier work, yet he asks nothing impossible of either.

The remaining two works, Concerto for flute, Op. 51 (from 1992) and Clarinet Concerto, Op. 37 (from 1983), contain the same signatures. They are clearly Hétu. The same kind of lyricism, the same kind of dark tones, the same sense of melancholy, pervades all of the four pieces, and what surprised me after listening to the CD several times, the same kind of quiet but definite and unexpected passion, yet they are distinctly different from each other. I clearly enjoyed listening to these concertos, one after the other.