Sweet Remembrance

Aug 6, 11:00 PM

Music@Menlo’s 2009 season prepares for its climactic final cadence this weekend. Friday evening’s Prelude Performance offers festival audiences another opportunity to hear Mendelssohn’s glorious Octet, performed by the Chamber Music Institute’s International Program artists (6:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church). Afterward, following their featured appearance at Thursday night’s Encounter, “Songs without Words: Mendelssohn’s Last Year,” led by Ara Guzelimian, the Pacifica Quartet completes the Mendelssohn quartet cycle with the heartrending Opus 80 and ephemeral Opus 81 (8:00 p.m., St. Mark’s Episcopal Church).

After giving the season’s final master class on Thursday to a capacity Martin Family Hall audience, pianist Menahem Pressler closes the season on Saturday night: joined by violinist Eugene Drucker and cellist and artistic director David Finckel, Menahem lends his especial mastery to the Mendelssohn piano trios—repertoire that he has lived with and refined for more than fifty years as pianist of the legendary Beaux Arts Trio (August 8, 8:00 p.m., Menlo Park Presbyterian Church).