MUSIC REVIEW : Some Outstanding Performances at the SummerFest : Concert: The outstanding musicianship of the players turned what could have been routine into an extraordinary event.

LA JOLLA —  Heiichiro Ohyama, artistic director of the La Jolla Chamber Music Society’s SummerFest, clearly subscribes to the “basic black and pearls” school of programming. Nothing trendy, nothing flashy. Just good taste in ample measure.

On paper, the festival’s Friday night opening concert did nothing to quicken the pulse: Schubert’s evergreen “Trout” Quintet, a Mozart Piano Trio and the Samuel Barber Cello Sonata. But the exquisite musicianship and heady chemistry of the SummerFest performers redeemed the requisite pilgrimage to Sherwood Auditorium.

Mozart’s piano Trio in B-flat Major, K. 502, provided an exquisite welcoming. For a work constructed from a modest number of themes, the ensemble of pianist David Golub, violinist Yuzuko Horigome and cellist Ronald Leonard discovered an amazing variety of textures and moods. Golub and Leonard shared a lofty view of Mozartean style: their lightness of touch and quicksilver phrasing gave every motive a chance to bloom and space in which to breathe. Horigome’s dark, unrelenting sonority and long-winded phrasing worked against that vision, but did not overly compromise the trio’s effervescent performance.

It was difficult to resist Ralph Kirshbaum’s encompassing, passionate account of the Barber Cello Sonata. One of the composer’s earliest compositions, the virtuoso duo for cello and piano overflows with prodigal melodic invention. Kirschbaum tempered the Sonata’s brash, rhapsodic rhetoric with a knowing touch of world-weary resignation. Golub conjured the orchestral scope and vivid colors of the piano part with his customary unflustered authority. Finding fault with Golub’s playing is as unlikely as discovering flaws in the “Mona Lisa.”

Schubert’s “Trout” Quintet all too easily descends into precious diddling, a lapse Friday’s muscular and consistently eloquent interpretation never approached. Golub’s assertive contribution--scintillating octaves, elegant figuration and stylish rubatos--admirably propelled the familiar work. The string contingent of Horigome, Leonard, violist Toby Hoffman and bassist Nico Abondolo also found fresh inspiration in the quintet’s well-worn tunes.

SummerFest ’91 continues Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Sherwood Auditorium with the Ridge String Quartet playing works by Anton Webern and Terry Riley.