Today, on February 5th, the Polish record label DUX will release a new album featuring Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 along with Eduard Tubin’s Piano Concertino in E flat minor. The album is recorded with pianist Mihkel Poll and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Mihhail Gerts, one of the most profiled Estonian conductor of the younger generation.While Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) and Estonian Eduard Tubin (1905–1982) are of different generations, their individual life circumstances have much in common. Both had to escape from their homelands as refugees to the United States and Sweden, respectively. Rachmaninoff did so as a result of the October Revolution of 1917 while Tubin fled the Soviet Union’s occupation of Estonia in 1944. The two never met, but Tubin did have the good fortune to attend one of Rachmaninoff’s recitals in Vienna in 1938, which left a deep impression on the young composer. His typically Estonian shyness precluded him from making an introduction to the famous Rachmaninoff. Although the music of these two composers is strikingly different, they are both symphonic dramatists at heart.
This album is Mihkel Poll’s third album released by DUX Recording Producers. Mihkel Poll's previous collaboration with DUX include the album with the works by George Enescu, Bela Bartók, Erkki-Sven Tüür, and Tõnu Kõrvits (2015) - which received the Best Estonian Classical Album 2016 award -, and album with her sister, violinist Mari Poll, featuring works for violin and piano by Enescu, Francis Poulenc, Arnold Schönberg and Erkki-Sven Tüür (2016).
Watch the interview with Mihkel Poll and Mihhail Gerts here.