Radio: Pick of the Day

ONCE THE question "Will I live forever?" was seen as fanciful. With medical advances raising the average life expectancy, however, it's now a topic of debate deemed respectable enough to launch a new science series, Q & A (9.30am R4).

The poet WH Auden (right) enjoyed greater success as a librettist than he did as a playwright. As well as supplying the words for The Rake's Progress by Stravinsky, he and his partner, Chester Kallman, worked on Henze's chamber opera, Elegy for Young Lovers, about a tyrannical poet who attaches greater importance to art than life. In Performance on 3 (7.30pm R3), the part is sung by Quentin Hayes. Markus Stenz conducts the London Sinfonietta.