SALZBURG, Austria – Thomas Hampson, the American baritone, is a regular in Salzburg, and practically the star of its show. He’s responsible for a couple of programs this season under the title “Dvorak and His Age.” On Friday night, he gave a fairly standard song recital – no, a standard song recital – that included a set of Dvorak songs (itself not very usual, granted). And tonight, he will lead a long concert that will involve three other singers. That program will include a lot of Dvorak, plus American songs (the New World, you know – as in Symphony), plus Grieg, plus some other things.

This is a good idea, as far as musicological endeavors go.

The recital on Friday night began with a composer Mr. Hampson likes very much, Liszt. We don’t hear his songs all that often – certainly not as

often as we hear his (splashy) piano pieces. Mr. Hampson performed a group of six Liszt songs, all in German. His pianist, incidentally – or not so incidentally – was Wolfram Rieger, one of the best accompanists in the business. So fine a pianist is he, whenever I hear him with a singer, I think, “It would be nice to hear him, alone, in recital.”

The first Liszt song was “Im Rhein” (“In the Rhine”), which has a wonderful watery opening – an opening that Mr. Rieger might have played with a touch more ecstasy. It was smooth, however. When the baritone entered, he brought you into a kind of fantasy world, the world of the song. He was – certainly at the beginning of the evening – in excellent voice, pouring on beauty at will. He did this when the voice was heavy, and when it was light. And his German is one of the most delectable among singers.

In the second Liszt song, “Anfangs wollt’ ich fast verzagen” (“At First I Almost Despaired”), we could see that Mr. Hampson was making each phrase interesting without robbing from the whole, without over dramatizing. This is always a pitfall for the lieder singer: the overemphasis of text at the expense of musical flow.

“Vergiftet sind meine Lieder” (“Poisoned Are My Songs”) had the requisite bitterness, and – skipping ahead – “Es rauschen die Winde” (“Gusting Are the Winds”) was extraordinarily evocative. You could see “the stars escaping from the sky,” and feel the very “hope of life fading away.” (Ah, Romantic misery.)

“Die drei Zigeuner” (“The Three Gypsies”) is a song Mr. Hampson seems to perform often, and that he definitely performs well. It is almost a mini-opera, with various acts, or scenes. Both singer and pianist brought these fellows – the gypsies – to life. As in the previous songs, you might have been there, right in the action (albeit a lazy action) described.

Then came time for the Dvorak set. Dvorak is not known for his songs – certainly in the United States – as familiar as his orchestral works, and, to a lesser degree, his chamber works, may be. This must be a handicap of language. If more singers sang in Czech, we would hear more Dvorak songs. Although, given the rising popularity of Janaycek’s operas, the language may be gaining ground.

Mr. Hampson sang in Czech, despite his having the option of singing these songs in German. His one concession was to hold the music in his hands. The seven songs on the program are not widely recognized, except the one we know as “Songs My Mother Taught Me,” which is virtually a chestnut (which is not to disparage this song, a beauty). In any case, Dvorak ought to be added to the mainstream 19th-century song repertory. Mr. Hampson left no doubt of that.

After intermission, he did something very familiar: He sang a Mahler song cycle. This was the “Songs of a Wayfarer.” Mr. Hampson has performed this cycle better, and will again. In the first song, “Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht” (“When My Love Becomes a Bride”), Wolfram Rieger was uncharacteristically sloppy – clipping notes, for example. And Mr. Hampson was a bit halting. This song might have rolled more naturally. And as the Mahler song cycles have come to be regarded as holy, tempos have slowed down disadvantageously.

The second song, “Ging heut’ morgen ubers Feld” (“As I Walked This Morning Through the Field”), rolled better. In the third – “Ich hab’ ein gluhend Messer” (“I Have a Gleaming Knife”) – Mr. Hampson brought down appropriate fury. But in the fourth and final song – “Die zwei blauen Augen” (“My Love’s Two Eyes of Blue”) – he succumbed to stylization. So too, the voice exhibited some wear; that glorious instrument was under some pressure.

Closing the printed program was a group of six Richard Strauss songs, most of them extremely familiar (and deservedly so). We heard “Heimliche Aufforderung” (“Secret Invitation”), which, in my view, is shown to best effect by a higher voice – a tenor or a soprano – but which our baritone handled nicely. Less nice was “Die Nacht” (“Night”), in which Mr. Hampson did some sliding around, when he might have treated those sublime phrases more straightforwardly. Probably the least familiar song in the group was one that should be more familiar: “Sehnsucht” (“Longing”), which is big, expansive, and which was admirably shaped, by the singer and pianist.

The final two songs, “Mein Herz ist stumm, mein Herz ist kalt” (“My Heart Is Dumb, My Heart Is Cold”) and “Morgen!” (“Tomorrow!”), were a bit too self-conscious for this critic’s taste, but the audience in the Little Festival Hall ate them up, demanding encores, of which Mr. Hampson gave several, most of them on the comic side, which sent the festival-goers home in a chuckling and appreciative mood.