Shining Performances Close the SummerFest : Music: The festival ended with concert standards, but they were performed with such elan that they seemed special.

SummerFest ’91 closed its two-week season Friday night with a comfortable return to the familiar Germanic fare that has become the festival’s trademark. Perhaps this solid dose of Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn was intended to exorcise any remaining unresolved dissonances or atonal half-lifes from the earlier Webern and Schnittke performances, festival director Heiichiro Ohyama’s isolated forays into adventurous programming this year.

But if Friday’s fare was predictable, SummerFest’s equally predictable high performance levels insured a rewarding finale for the overflow crowd at Sherwood Auditorium. Violinist Julie Rosenfeld infused Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, Op. 25, with puckish glee, coaxing sprightly and ever-stylish responses from flutist Marina Piccinini and violist Toby Hoffma. For all of their playful exchanges, the three players displayed the precise ensemble that only the most detailed preparation allows.

Andre Previn, who had already appeared in the festival as conductor, performer and jazz impresario, returned to the keyboard for Schumann’s E-flat Major Piano Quartet. (Previn seems willing to do anything for SummerFest except usher.) His playing sounded more colorful and articulate Friday than it did in last Tuesday’s Schumann Piano Quartet in C Minor. The ensemble--Previn was joined by violinist Young Uck Kim, violist Ohyama, and cellist Gary Hoffman--could not have been more thoughtfully balanced or sweetly tuned. Their highly sympathetic interpretation could not, however, compensate for the work’s shortcomings, its weak, episodic structure and a saccharine slow movement that borders on mere salon music. But only a curmudgeon could have resisted Hoffman’s soaring solos and his fierce, resonant sonority.

An energetic but curiously disengaged traversal of the Mendelssohn Octet brought down the SummerFest curtain. Like an old painting that has been cleaned too rigorously and glows with unnaturally vibrant hues, this Octet sported a clean, modern sound that filtered out its essential Romantic patina. It was aerobic Mendelssohn, but not a performance to touch the soul. Violinists Kim and Rosenfeld were joined by Sheryl Staples and Ayako Yoshida. Toby Hoffman joined Ohyama in the viola sector, and cellist Carter Brey played opposite Gary Hoffman.