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A romantic on piano
Eduardus Halim solos with the Florida Orchestra this weekend.
By JOHN FLEMING
© St. Petersburg Times, published January 4, 2001
There may be more Chopin piano recordings than any other genre in the classical repertory, but that hasn't stopped Eduardus Halim, who has just released an all-Chopin CD.
"It's very risky to do Chopin, because there are so many wonderful recordings of his music," Halim said. "But I really wanted to get out my own personal thoughts on Chopin."
Halim, who appears with the Florida Orchestra this weekend, has been called a born Chopinist. His remarkable technique, luminous tone and romantic approach make for an epic sort of playing in works such as the Polonaise in F sharp minor and the Sonata No. 3 in B minor. Yet the pianist can also be sublimely delicate and probing in five of the gemlike mazurkas.
The recording is the first by Reservoir Studio Productions, a small label run by Emily Sorokin Kessler, a former manager with Young Concert Artists, the organization with which Halim began his professional career in 1989. Reservoir has its own recording studio in a converted barn in Katonah, N.Y.
"It was an ideal situation," said Halim, who recorded the album last summer. "There was no restriction on time in the studio. I felt very comfortable. I felt I could say something the way I wanted. If I wasn't happy about a piece, I could try it again the next day."
One of Halim's claims to fame is that he was, in the 1980s, the last pupil of Vladimir Horowitz, to whom he was invariably compared early in his career. He has gradually worked his way out from beneath the shadow of the great Russian pianist to become an established soloist in his own right.
Halim is an admirer of Horowitz's recordings of Chopin's mazurkas, but several other pianists come to his mind when he thinks of the greatest interpreters of the composer on disc.
"Alfred Cortot brought incredible poetry and freedom to Chopin," he said. "Another who is much less well known nowadays, but I think he is truly a Chopinist's Chopinist, was Ignaz Friedman. His nocturnes are like a conversation. Also, of course, Josef Hofmann, who was much more patrician than Friedman or Cortot."
He is not especially fond of Arthur Rubinstein, whose elegant recordings for RCA were the benchmark for a generation of Chopin lovers.
"Rubinstein was a grand pianist, a noble pianist, yet I find his Chopin a little bit too detached. I like a more intimate Chopin."
During the same week he recorded the Chopin, Halim also recorded a program of Granados' Goyescas and Valses Poeticos, which is scheduled to be released in March. His approach in the studio is to try to replicate a concert experience.
"I try to play the whole thing through," he said. "I know there are recording techniques that go from measure to measure, but I would not be comfortable with that. The most important element, I think, is to have the sweep of the piece, the feel of the whole picture. To bring the ideal of live performance to recording is the ultimate, even if the playing is not perfect, because that keeps it from getting tiresome. I can listen to a Cortot recording 100 times and always find something new."
This weekend, Halim is the soloist in Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1, one of the romantic staples he is often asked to play. He is also featured, along with the orchestra's principal trumpet, Rob Smith, in a less familiar work, Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No. 1. The program, conducted by Jahja Ling, also includes selections from Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake.
A year ago, Halim performed the Liszt concerto with the Milwaukee Symphony when it made history by becoming the first major U.S. orchestra to perform in Cuba in 37 years.
"It was quite an experience," Halim said. "The genuine love for music was there. We met all of Havana's musicians. We exchanged ideas. It was very touching, the whole trip."
Halim, who was born in Indonesia, turns 40 this year. In the future, he'd like to record some Schumann and Albeniz. He's eager to get a chance to perform Burleske, the only work for piano and orchestra by Richard Strauss.
His career path has been steady, but the popularity of romantic piano has been in some eclipse since the heyday of Horowitz, who died in 1989. In general, a more analytical style has been in vogue in recent years.
"The main thing is, I'm thankful I'm still making a living as a musician," Halim said. "I have people behind me who believe in me. I have the same manager I have had since I started, Jenny Vogel at ICM Artists (who is also Ling's manager). I wish it could be more high profile, but the main thing is the work, the music."
Do pianists get better as they get older?
"Some do, some don't," Halim said. "I think it's a matter of how curious one is. I'm struck by what Rachmaninoff used to say, that for a pianist, a lifetime is not enough. There's so much music written for piano. I don't particularly put age as a barrier. I feel I'm in the right path, I'm doing what I like to do, and I think I can contribute something."
MUSIC PREVIEW
Pianist Eduardus Halim is the soloist with the Florida Orchestra Friday in Ferguson Hall of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and Saturday at Mahaffey Theater, both at 8 p.m., and at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall. Tickets: $20-$38. (813) 286-2403.
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