In the musical and social rush that infused this weekend’s opening of La Jolla SummerFest, the area’s premier chamber music festival, I couldn’t shake the impression that we were experiencing a high-stakes violin competition. One by one and two by two the violin virtuosi took the stage to flaunt their technical prowess and joust with one another.

Depending on your musical predilections, this was either too much of a good thing or a taste of heaven. Especially after hearing Gil Shaham’s blazing, yet keenly profound account of J.S. Bach’s “D Minor Partita for Solo Violin,” BWV 1004, on Saturday’s concert, I eagerly vote for the latter.

Because SummerFest Music Director Cho-Liang Lin is one of the leading solo violinists of his generation, it is no surprise that he gathers together the crème de la crème of his fiddling colleagues for his festival. On Friday, Lin and Jaime Laredo opened the festival with Mozart’s seldom played but perky “Concertone for Two Violins,” K. 190, with Laredo taking the solo lead and conducting the festival orchestra, a nod to the typical period performance practice.

What stuck me was the contrast of tone color and phrasing between Lin and Laredo, the latter sporting a rich, exuberant line against Lin’s more refined, silvery traceries. Schools of violin performance from two different eras—Laredo made his Carnegie Hall debut (1960) the year Lin was born—made their case, allowing the audience to decide silently which approach won them over.

While they were pondering such stylistic conundrums, oboist Andrea Overturf melted everyone’s hearts with ravishing, gorgeously shaped solo lines that complemented the solo violins. In his short opening remarks, Lin had explained that even though Mozart did not mention the oboe in the Concertone’s title, its contribution was of equal importance to that of the solo violins. Local audiences are familiar with Overturf’s exemplary playing on English Horn with the San Diego Symphony, but on oboe she is even more winsome.

The 27-year-old Augustin Hadelich impressed SummerFest listeners last season with his astonishing technique, and the young German violinist again dropped jaws with his flash and flawless intonation in Giovanni Bottesini’s “Grand Duo Concertante for Violin and Double Bass.” Bassist DaXun Zhang conjured the most unexpected melodic delicacy and agile figurations from the highest range of the contrabass, but watching him wrestle with the sheer physical challenge of coaxing these results from such a massive instrument—his whole body was literally wrapped around the bass—it was difficult to simply concentrate on the beauty of his music.

On the other hand, Hadelich displayed such a natural, seemingly effortless technique, that fusillades of complex figurations and arpeggios erupted from his violin with the effort you or I might exert calling someone on speed-dial. It was not a fair competition, but the two soloists did more than justice to this grandiose fantasy.

Program annotator Eric Bromberger noted that Bottesini’s sprawling, single-movement work “is intended to please audiences and performers, rather than music critics.” As usual, Mr. Bromberger’s observations are nonpareil. Lin conducted the festival orchestra gracefully, allowing the soloists ample room to negotiate their acrobatics.

Without question, the marriage made in heaven was the pairing of Lin and Shaham in Serge Prokofiev’s “Sonata in C Major for Two Violins,” Op. 86, the piece that commenced Saturday’s concert. So much of this piece floats in the violin’s stratospheric range, and these players matched timbre and phrasing eloquently, suggesting a mysticism one rarely attributes to the flinty Prokofiev. In the more energetic movements—this is a by-the-book, four movement neo-classical sonata—I enjoyed Shaham’s slightly more aggressive press to the tempo. But equally admirable was Lin’s restraint, the perfect complement.

SummerFest audiences prefer hearty, rollicking chamber music as proof they’ve gotten their money’s worth, so when Shaham started his solo Bach Partita, the hall was less than attentive, a barely suppressed but noticable grumble. By the time he had moved into the second movement, Bach’s scintillating Courante, the room began to pay serious attention. And when he unfolded the mesmerizing arcs of the Sarabande, the room turned astonishingly silent and completely focused on him.

Like the composer’s sublime suites for unaccompanied cello, the solo violin sonatas and partitas scale Olympian heights, and Shaham took us there with a Sherpa’s unfailing guidance. His gift was to infuse the sublime with compassion, and the standing Sherwood audience brought him back for many bows after the last notes of the Partita’s mighty Chaconne had died away.

Saturday’s second half offered Burt Hara in the solo role of Johannes Brahms’ bucolic “Quintet in B Minor for Clarinet and Strings,” Op. 115. More introverted than any of the festival's high-strung violinists, Hara crafted limpid, undulating lines and cultivated a tonal purity beyond reproach, although it might prove revealing if he removed one or two restraints.

Shaham and Sheryl Staples provided first and second violin parts respectively, although their fervor at times overwhelmed Hara, especially in the opening movement. Of note was the sonic breadth and burnished character of cellist Hai-Ye Ni’s support of the ensemble. Violist Toby Hoffman completed the quintet. In a table provided in the program book, we can see that among SummerFest's top 10 most frequently played chamber works, half are by Brahms. This Quintet aptly demonstrated the ingratiating qualities of this repertory on a mild summer evening.

SummerFest, which is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this season, continues through Friday, August 26, with numerous free open rehearsals (see the LJMS website for dates and details) in addition to a robust concert schedule.

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