Vienna Schubert Trio Plays in Costa Mesa : Touring chamber group goes through the motions, then switches gears to become a cohesive, steady unit.

As touring chamber groups go, the Vienna Schubert Trio is relatively new, having emerged only in 1985.

The name came quite naturally; all three players live in Vienna, and the trio just happened to be founded on Schubert’s birthday, Jan. 31--which by sheer coincidence was also the date of its Southern California debut Thursday night in Founders Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

All of this had to be a good omen for a performance of Schubert’s Trio in B Flat, Opus 99. And it was--at least for that portion of the program.

Earlier, the threesome--pianist Claus-Christian Schuster, violinist Boris Kuschnir and cellist Martin Hornstein--opened with a rather stolid reading of a rather slight Mozart trio, the one in C, K. 546, No. 5. And they tended to view the Ravel Trio through a gauze of mist and muddled bombast with little clarity and poise, where the piano completely drowned out the strings in the climaxes.

But in the Schubert, the trio finally could show what it could do, perhaps after having had time to adjust to this unusual “black-box” hall where the performers are surrounded on all sides and at close range by the audience.

Schuster exhibited a lighter, clearer touch than before, no longer overwhelming his partners. Kuschnir, who had outbreaks of unsteady intonation earlier, sounded considerably more stable, and Hornstein’s cello finally emerged firmly and cleanly in the blend, whereas he could barely be heard before.

The trio then seemed to breathe as a single unit--listening carefully to each other, digging into the sharp rhythms of the Scherzo and Finale with a bite and urgency that made one want to leap from the chair, delivering the Trio of the Scherzo in long, unified arches. This was an inspired performance, firm in structure, ardent in execution.

After the Schubert and in between the two encores, Schuster rose from the keyboard to deliver a pair of brief yet charmingly humorous talks, gently warning us, “It’s easy to get into recitals--it’s not so easy to get out!”

With that disarming bit of wisdom, the trio delivered a passionately played fourth movement from Dvorak’s “Dumky” Trio and the Scherzo from Brahms’ Trio No. 2.