NEAL CONAN, HOST: With me here in Studio 3A is Fred Child, the host of NPR's Performance Today. Fred, thanks for joining us.

FRED CHILD: Glad to be here, Neal.

CONAN: Since three weeks have gone by, I know over the last 21 days you've been asking listeners to let you know what music feels appropriate at this time of national grief. We want to know from our listeners what they want to hear. Is there a composition you're returning to again and again, a favorite album that you can't get out of your CD player? Let us know what it is. (800) 989-TALK or you can e-mail your request to totn@npr.org, and even if we don't get mention of it on the air, we'll pass it along to Fred at Performance Today.

But what have your listeners been talking about, Fred?

CHILD: Well, a huge range of music, and it's actually been gratifying to hear -- I mean, Performance Today is a classical music program, and lots of requests for the Barber "Adagio for Strings" that we just heard and music of Beethoven and music by Gustav Mahler, but also Django Reinhardt, the great Gypsy jazz guitarist, and jazz in general, and some other people had some pop tunes that they turned to.

Music is so subjective and so personal, and I think our reactions to this event are so personal that for everybody the music is a little bit different, but there have been some patterns.

There seem to be these sort of general categories. Music for grieving was in the first couple of days, the 12th and 13th, the Barber "Adagio" over and over and over again, not only from our listeners, but that piece was played over and over and over again by orchestras all around the country. At least a dozen that I know of and probably many more than that performed the Barber "Adagio."

Then there's music for solace, music for comfort, music to give you a sense of belonging and a sense that life can go on. That's been another category of music, I think. And then music for strength, too, and I think that's where the Beethoven comes in -- the sense of triumph over adversity. So a huge range of music, but I think it has served some real emotional needs in folks.

CONAN: One of the points of interest was that a listener told you of a fascinating story involving Gustav Mahler.

CHILD: Yes, and this was actually something that I did not know about. Gustav Mahler, in 1908, came to New York City to conduct the Metropolitan Opera, and he was living in a hotel in New York City. And he heard a commotion outside his hotel room one day, and he looked out the window and there was a parade going by, and he opened his window and looked out, leaned out, looked and listened.

It was the funeral procession for a New York City firefighter, and in the procession he heard this slowly banging bass drum and he actually included this in his Symphony No. 10, in the transition from the fourth movement to the final movement. So this was something that I didn't know and no one on our staff knew even, and a listener wrote in and told us this, and this was something we simply had to play, given the circumstances.

CONAN: Let's hear a little bit of it.

(Soundbite of Mahler's Tenth Symphony)

CONAN: You'll not be able to hear that the same way ever again.

CHILD: Yeah, yeah. Really a remarkable piece of music and a remarkable story behind it. And it just made such an immediate connection with listeners, too, to hear that Mahler was inspired by the funeral of a New York City firefighter. And I think you're right, just as we're not able to think of New York City firefighters the same way, this is a piece of music we'll not be able to hear the same way again.

CONAN: Let's take some phone calls. Joining us now, Meryl is on the line from Cleveland.

MERYL (Caller): Hi.

CONAN: Hi. What are you listening to?

MERYL: I've been listening to old Simon & Garfunkel CDs. Sounds of Silence, Bookends. I grew up in Manhattan and that was part of my coming-of-age music. And there's a melancholy to Simon & Garfunkel's songs, and yet, at the same time, it seems a far more innocent melancholy. The things that we were melancholy about then, I could look back with nostalgia. And it was good music to cry to, but it was also comforting because it seemed to come from a much less frightening time, even though at the time there were all these frightening things happening.

CHILD: You know...

MERYL: But they pale in comparison.

CHILD: I think you're exactly right. Actually it was great to see Paul Simon on "Saturday Night Live," at the beginning of "Saturday Night Live" doing "The Boxer." And that's another song...

MERYL: Yeah.

CHILD: ...that I will never hear the same way again after seeing him sing it with his voice cracking and that sense of desolation and yet strength at the same time. "The fighter still remains."

MERYL: Definitely.

CONAN: Meryl, thanks for your call.

MERYL: Thank you.

CONAN: Let's go now to Nelson, who's on the line with us from Kansas City.

NELSON (Caller): Yes. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I work for a major music retailer in Kansas City and it's been gratifying to me. My tastes are sort of in the orchestral line of things, and it's been gratifying to me that my customers, at least for every one that asks for a copy of the Lee Greenwood CD, God Bless the USA, I'm getting customers in who also want to hear things like Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia" and a theme by Thomas Tallis or the Barber "Adagio for Strings" or the Verdi Requiem.

It's been very gratifying. And I have been suggesting to them that they try to find copies of those things performed by the New York Philharmonic if they can or perhaps the National Symphony Orchestra. It's been a very moving time.

CONAN: Is business up?

NELSON: I can't say because I am so far below the level of making decisions based on what the business is doing. I mean, I am really the front-line person. I don't detect that we're busier than we have been, but I don't have the bird's-eye view of things.

CONAN: OK. Thanks very much for your call, Nelson.

NELSON: Thank you.

CONAN: OK. Now, Fred, obviously, you know, we're all listening to various kinds of music, but performers -- you know, they must have approached it the same way that a lot of us did coming to work the day of or the day after the attacks, that, you know, 'What am I doing here?'

CHILD: Well, that's very true. And actually, most classical concerts around the country on the 11th and the 12th were canceled. It just felt like the wrong thing to do, to sit down and perform on those days.

But starting the very next day, the 13th, 14th and going into that weekend, musicians started going back and doing the shows and thinking, 'You know what? I'm not a fireman, but this is what I do. This is how I can contribute.' And your caller earlier, Ann from LA, said it's so important to have the arts in our lives, and I think musicians started feeling that.

Emanuel Ax is a pianist who made a special effort to get from New York to Baltimore to play with the Baltimore Symphony. He said, 'I'm not a fireman, but this is what I can do. Playing Beethoven is my form of prayer.' Zubin Mehta, the executive director of the New York Philharmonic, said before their big memorial concert on the 20th, 'We're not firefighters, but this is what we do. This is how we can bring comfort and solace to the world.'

CONAN: Try to get one more call in. Theresa's on the line with us from Burnet, Texas.

THERESA (Caller): Hello.

CONAN: What you listening to, Theresa?

THERESA: Well, I am listening to "Let It Be," the song from The Beatles, and it just seemed so pertinent to me with everything that has happened. I mean, quickly, when I was a little girl, my father had lost both his legs in Vietnam, and when he was going through all his surgeries, he would tell me, 'Theresa, flip the tape,' and it would be "Let It Be," by Paul McCartney and Lennon, and it just seems like when this all happened, it just kind of brought back everything.

And I'm sorry I get so emotional when I talk about it, but it just brought back everything, you know, 'When I find myself in time of trouble, you know, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom, "Let It be,"' and it just seems so appropriate to what's going on. And I just find myself -- as far as what you had said, this is kind of my prayer to get me through. And we're so far away from New York City, but at the same time, it's hit us just as hard and...

CONAN: Theresa, don't apologize for being emotional. Thanks very much for your call.

THERESA: Oh, thank you.

CONAN: And, Fred Child, thank you very much for joining us.

CHILD: Glad to be here, Neal.

CONAN: And we'll pass on all the suggestions that we've received from our telephone callers and anything we receive at totn@npr.org over to you at Performance Today.

CHILD: Thank you very much.