Randy Anderson

In 1982 I was pushed into a chair in front of a microphone to back announce Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 3."  Back then, KPAC was brand new, and had four turntables, reel to reel machines, and a small staff. With no university or college to support us, bringing classical music to San Antonio was a gamble from the get - go. Here are some of my favorite musical moments of the last three decades.

Franz Schubert had great friends, and he needed them. His father wanted him to teach school, but Franz was built to compose music, and what started as a family hobby turned into an all consuming passion. Giving up his teaching job, Schubert turned to his friends, and with their help he was allowed, slowly and painfully, to become the artist he knew himself to be.

This country is always in motion, or as one shipping company calls it "moving at the speed of business." Before the question of slavery became a civil war, American's enjoyed their minstrel shows, and after the conflagration, touring minstrel shows were once again one of this country's favorite pastimes.

This Sunday on "The Piano," music that has many fathers, music that comes together, ferments a bit and becomes something new - different and distinctly American.

Arrogant, willful and brusque, not paying attention to how he dressed or even to combing his hair, Ludwig van Beethoven wasn't a man cut out for high society. Luckily in Vienna, the upper crust loved and understood music, and with that introduction, Beethoven was exactly in the right place.