Jacques Hétu was already an established figure on the Canadian music scene when he was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra to write Symphony No. 5.
A student of Clermont Pépin in Montreal and later of Henri Dutilleux and Olivier Messiaen in Paris, his musical language bridged the Atlantic, so the choice of Paul Éluard - one of France's most famous poets (and a member of the Resistance) - was an obvious one. The work is inspired by his poem Liberté from Poésie et vérité (1942).
Hétu died three weeks before the premiere of the symphony in 2010. Alexander Shelley brings this work back to life with two great Canadian orchestras, the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, as well as the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
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