Over the remaining weeks of October, we have some excellent classical music events on the schedule here in Washington. The problem for us is certainly not going to be finding things to recommend in our weekly agenda, but rather choosing which of many possible concerts we should counsel you to attend. This week, we are going mostly with the big guns.

CHAMBER MUSIC:
>> There are the regular Sunday concerts at the Phillips Collection and the National Gallery, of course, but the only truly interesting free concert this week is at the Library of Congress on Friday (October 14, 8 p.m.). The Vermeer String Quartet will perform Haydn’s op. 76/1 quartet and Janáček’s second quartet, subtitled “Intimate Letters,” and they will join with pianist Edmund Battersby for a rare performance of Dohnányi’s first piano quintet, too.

>> Another string quartet will join with another pianist, the Orion String Quartet and Peter Serkin, for a concert this Wednesday (October 12, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center‘s Terrace Theater. The program includes a piano quintet by Lieberson, Mozart’s E-flat piano quartet, and the transcendant fifteenth string quartet by Beethoven. Tickets: $34.

>> One of the best string quartets of our time, the Takács Quartet, has a new violist. If you did not feel like making the trip to Baltimore to see them, which we recommended two weeks ago, they are closer to home this week. On Sunday (October 16, 4 p.m.), they will perform a concert sponsored by the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences in Bethesda. The concert will actually take place at the Landon School’s Mondzac Performing Arts Center (6101 Wilson Ln., in Bethesda), and it features works by Mozart (the “Dissonance” quartet and the viola quintet, with James Dunham) and the Debussy string quartet. Tickets: $22 (students, $10). You can purchase at the door or reserve in advance at (301) 496-7976.