03 March 2010

vladimir horowitz, you're my hero.

mrs. hall, the sixth grade teacher at two rock elementary school, was scary.
everyone dreaded sixth grade because of her infamous Research Project.
said project was biographical and included the following:
-a twelve page paper about the person
-a timeline marking important events in the life of the person [with pictures, if possible]
-a fifteen minute speech AS the person [complete with costume]
-an activity or quiz for the class to participate in that has something to do with your person and why he or she was important
-and a handmade doll mounted on a cardboard background.

we moved to two rock, california when i was eleven.
right before the sixth grade.
when i heard of mrs. hall's reputation and INSANE research project, i was terrified, overwhelmed, and completely unprepared for such a task.

but i realized that with this project, as with most things in life, it was completed little by little and despite my trepidation, i did it! i'm still proud of the work i did in that class and had completely forgotten about that project until today at 12:20pm in my humanities 202 class.

right now, we're learning about the romantic period in music. we've been listening to a lot of puccini and wagner.
today, we listened to rachmaninoff.
my professor told us that rachmaninoff's piano concertos are the most difficult piano pieces to date and that you are a true professional pianist when you can play them.

to demonstrate this, he showed us a video of the subject of my 6th grade project, vladimir horowitz.
i realized while i was watching that i had never seen him play because back in 1998, youtube didn't even exist.
and after watching, i can say that my respect for this man has grown exponentially.
not only did he successfully and beautifully place this piece, HE DID IT FROM MEMORY.

see for yourself:

1 comment:

Gayle said...

I love this video! I thought your research paper was fifteen pages long. You really were prepared to do papers in her class.