WORKS FOT PIANO AND ORCHESTRA. Mihkel Poll, Mihhail Gerts. Dux 2021

Sergei Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Eduard Tubin
Concertino for Piano and Orchestra

MIHKEL POLL piano
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
Conductor MIHHAIL GERTS

Recorded with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO), under the baton of Mihhail Gerts, the Mihkel Poll’s new album features the Everest of piano repertoire – Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 along with the Concertino by pianist’s compatriot, Eduard Tubin. The release follows the album featuring Artur Lemba’s Piano Concerto No.1 recorded equally with ERSO under Neeme Järvi. This is Mihkel Poll’s third album released by DUX Recording Producers.

Kristel Pappel writes in the introduction of her essay about the works: While composers Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) of Russia 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.

The new album of Mihkel Poll is the consequent continuation of his discography where the pianist presents works by Estonian composers of different generations (Helena Tulve, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Tõnu Kõrvits) and confronts them with the pieces by world-renowned composers (such as Maurice Ravel, George Enescu or Béla Bartók). His second solo album, with works from Enescu, Bartok, Tüür and Kõrvits, received the „Best Estonian Classical Album 2016” award.

Mihkel Poll has been Artist-in-Residence with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra with which he has toured and recorded under Neeme Järvi. He performed at major concert venues including Wigmore Hall and Barbican Hall in London, the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonia, the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest and the National Opera in Warsaw, both in recitals and with orchestras such as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and the Nordic Symphony Orchestra. In 2019, Mihkel Poll made his orchestral debut at the Grande Salle Pierre Boulez of Paris Philharmonie.