RADIO CHOICE

GUSTAV MAHLER’S wife, Alma, was young, gifted and beautiful, though many thought her spiteful and vain. The marriage was not a happy one; Mahler expected Alma to live to a strict timetable that suited him, while Alma took her revenge by taking a succession of lovers. In today’s instalment of COMPOSER OF THE WEEK (RADIO 3, 12 NOON, 6.30PM), Donald Macleod considers how grief after the death of their eldest daughter had a profound effect on Alma and Gustav’s lives.

TOUGH rye-grass seed — nine tonnes of it — is used on the Wimbledon tennis courts each year. During the annual Championships, the courts are mown and covered every day, and the grass is kept to a height of 8mm. All this — as Alison Mitchell discovers when