Watch: Pizza delivery boy belts out Beethoven masterpiece leaving family speechless
A pizza delivery boy surprised a Michigan family when he sat down at their baby grand piano and played a beautiful rendition of a Beethoven classic at their residence. Paul Varchetti had ordered a pizza for his kids from Hungry Howie's in Shelby Township, his wife Julie said. The delivery was assigned to 18-year-old Bryce Dudal, who spotted the grand piano upon reaching the Varchetti's and asked the family if he could play it.
Paul was highly enthusiastic about the request and invited the recent high school graduate inside to play the baby grand piano. Dudal jumped at the opportunity and sat down to play the third movement of Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata in front of the family.
Dudal caused the family's jaws to drop and prompted the father to pull out his phone and start recording the performance. While the wife was not home at the time, she uploaded the footage to her Facebook, where it went viral and garnered over 700,000 views.
"He was just beyond good," Julie told the Washington Post. “When he started playing, I was surprised,” Ryan, Varchetti's 10-year-old son, said. “I thought he was going to break the piano at first.”
According to Dudal, he is mostly self-taught and said that he memorized the legendary composition when he was around six or seven years old. In a conversation with Washington Post, he said he would spend hours just listening to the piece and then try to recreate the magic on a keyboard his parents had gifted him.
"It was a long process," he said. "You have to sit there and think and try to put it on the piano, piece by piece. I couldn't read music back then. I would sit there and listen for hours and hours and try to figure it out."
Dudal's parent's found him a music teacher when he was about 12, who taught him to read sheet music and helped him perfect the masterpiece in time.
"It's a flashy, fast, amazing piece," he told the Post. "A lot of people sit down at the piano and play something slow and beautiful. But when I play for someone, I like to go all out."
Having said that, most of Dudal's customers have no inkling of the talent he possesses. "All they see is a pizza delivery guy," he said.
About a year ago, Dudal stopped playing the instrument in order to focus on baseball, another one of his talents. He went on to receive a baseball scholarship to Macomb Community College.
That said, while sports have taken up the majority of Dudal's time, he says the newfound fame has prompted him to dust off his piano and start playing music once again.