Pacifica Quartet

Friends of Chamber Music brings back the misnamed but masterful foursome (now based in Bloomington, Ind., after years in Chicago and New York) to perform two splendid programs. Monday’s concert features selections from Dvorák’s lovely “Cypresses”; the fervent, rarely heard, World War II sixth quartet by the 20th-century Polish-Russian composer Mieczysław Weinberg (whose music sometimes resembles Bartók’s); and that summit of the string quartet with its mighty original ending, Beethoven’s so-called “Great Fugue.” Tuesday’s concert includes an earlier Beethoven quartet; Prokofiev’s striking, folk-influenced (complete with evocations of Caucasian percussion and plucked instruments) String Quartet No. 2; and Smetana’s first quartet.

Where: Lincoln Hall, Portland State University
Phone: 224.9842
Address: 1620 SW Park Ave.