Beethoven versus The Last Poets
In reply to a newsgroup discussion about Gunter Wand’s Nonesuch recording of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis:
Wand's is the stereo recording I used to get to know the work (along with the older mono Toscanini). I even spun it back in 1978 on my, ahem, late night radio show on WMXM, my college's FM station. My show wasn't a classical show per se, but whatever I wanted to play. I had preceded the Missa with the Last Poets' "White Man's Got A God Complex." I even had a listener that night, too. She clearly preferred the Last Poets, calling to ask when "that missa-thing" would be over. It had an hour to go.
