Even while NPR stations have, or soon will eliminate classical music offerings from their channels (FM stations operate on channels just like TV stations), every now-and-then NPR offers little classical tidbits. That happened today (02/19/05) during "Weekend Edition/Saturday", twice in fact. As the first hour came to a close, there was a feature on conductors performing in other countries and how they communicate to foreign musicians. Scott Simon interviewed WESAT's go-to guy (guy?) Marin Alsop, who's always a charming and knowledgeable interview subject. As the program wound down to the top-of-the-hour, they aired a portion of Mahler's Adagietto from his 5th Symphony. The closing segment of the second hour was an interview with a scientist named Simon Singh, who has written a book about the Big Bang (the one that started the Universe and made music possible). After the two Simons chatted for a while, the music selector for the show played a couple of minutes from Haydn's " The Creation", specifically "The heavens are telling of the glory of God". (Obiter dictum: a couple of months ago, a writer to this site put down Haydn, at least his symphonies, but his two oratorios, "The Creation" and "The Seasons" are true glories of the choral repertoire, and the chorus NPR played the opening of today is one of my favorite pieces. So take that!) So I for one am grateful that a show that reaches several million people every week placed some excellent if unaccustomed great music before them at least for today. Laurence Glavin Methuen, Mass