If the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach, and if a surefire way to win a lady's favour is to wine and dine her by candlelight, then this year's Birmingham Early Music Festival is aptly titled.
"The Food of Love" has its opening event on Saturday at the CBSO Centre in Berkley Street, when the versatile and popular vocal group I Fagiolini (right) presents The Full Monteverdi.
Directed by John La Bouchardiere ( of English National Opera/Operatunity fame), this sequence of deeply emotional miniatures by Monteverdi, the greatest composer of the transitional period between late Renaissance and early Baroque, explores the relationships of six couples passing from suspicion, through eroticism, to break-up.
And all of this while the audience sits cafe-style over complimentary antipasti and wine (7pm, details on 0121 414 7333).
Other events continuing during the autumn will be previewed here at the appropriate time, but meanwhile the Festival brochure is much recommended, not least for its attractive front cover.
Such intimate soul-baring contrasts with the massive event taking place at Symphony Hall tomorrow, when All Rise by the renowned trumpeter Wynton Marsalis hits the stage.
This extraordinary fusion of jazz, classical and world music is scored for symphony orchestra, jazz orchestra, chorus and gospel choir, and tells in its 12 sections the basic story of humanity, falling from innocent pleasure into tribulation and rising again through faith to maturity and joy.
Commissioned by the conductor Kurt Masur, All Rise was premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and attendant forces in 1999.
Since then Masur and Marsalis have performed it to great acclaim in Paris, Leipzig and Berlin, and tomorrow's British premiere will be followed by a tour of major venues in Cardiff, London, Manchester and Glasgow.
Kurt Masur conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra, with Wynton Marsalis, the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra and the London Adventist Chorale (7.30pm, details on 0121 780 3333).
Also tomorrow, Bromsgrove Concerts launches its new season in its comfortable, stylish new home at the Artrix, off the A38 Bromsgrove Bypass. The Fujita Piano Trio plays works by Mozart, Ravel, Takemitsu and Brahms (8pm, details on 01527 874163).
This same telephone number will bring details of Wednesday's concert opening the new season by Bromsgrove Concerts' contemporary music offshoot, " Mixing Music".
The acclaimed London Sinfonietta brings a programme of 20thcentury classics: Lutoslawski's Dance Preludes, Debussy's Cello Sonata and Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, composed in a Nazi prison camp. Fraser Trainer's Motion Pictures kicks off the evening (8pm).
Further south in Worcestershire, the first concert in Malvern Concert Club's 103rd season brings the acclaimed British pianist Paul Lewis to the town's Forum Theatre tonight.
Recently seen playing Constant Lambert's Rio Grande at the Last Night of the Proms in London's Royal Albert Hall, Lewis now turns his attention to more serious matters as he sets out on a complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas which he will be performing at various venues over the UK, Europe and the United States during the next two years.
Malvern, Cheltenham and Chipping Campden will share one of the cycles in Lewis' odyssey, beginning here with the three sonatas of Opus 31 and the quirky F-sharp major Sonata, Opus 78 (7.30pm, details on 01684 892277).
Another of the country's favourite pianists, David Owen Norris joins members of Birmingham Conservatoire Keyboard Department at the Adrian Boult Hall tomorrow evening for a specially recorded programme in BBC Radio 3's popular "Discovering Music" (7.30pm).
Four different keyboards from four key musical periods will feature in a demonstration of how the piano has evolved, with performances of music by Bach, Mozart, Chopin and Debussy (admission free by ticket available from Birmingham Central Library Box Office).
