Eric Cutler, an Iowan, is an up-andcoming tenor. Actually, he has perhaps up and come, given his appearances at the Metropolitan Opera – in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” for example – and his recital on Friday night. That event took place in Weill Recital Hall, the pretty upstairs annex at Carnegie.

Mr. Cutler offered an appetizing program, consisting of French and Italian songs in the first half, and American ones in the second. His accompanist was Bradley Moore, an assistant conductor at the Met. (The world has had good luck with accompanists named Moore.)

Messrs. Cutler and Moore began with three of Faure’s best songs, grouped under the title “Poeme d’un jour.” Mr. Cutler, first of all, boasts a wonderful instrument: lovely, light, with a song inherent in it. That instrument should get him far (or even farther). In the Faure, he was a little short on Gallic understatement and wistfulness. You don’t have to be French to have these qualities, of course – consider Dame Janet Baker.

Also, Mr. Cutler’s high notes in these songs were a little big – a little operatic, and unsong-like. Finally, and insultingly, his last note of the group – on the appropriate word “Adieu!” – was a little low (flat). But he was just warming up.

He next sang four songs of Reynaldo Hahn, beginning with that neo-Baroque beauty, “A Chloris.” He and Mr. Moore judged this song well, although they could have been a little straighter in their rhythm. (I like it darn near metronomic, but that’s asking a lot.) The other songs were “Le Rossignol des lilas,” “Paysage,” and “Nocturne,” in all of which Mr. Cutler was pleasant.

The first half of the program ended with songs of Respighi – no, not the ones you might have expected: “Nevicata,” “Pioggia,” “Nebbie.” (These songs are associated with Luciano Pavarotti, late of the recital and operatic stages.) Mr. Cutler sang the five songs of “Deita silvane,” quasi-Impressionistic pieces that explore the mystical pleasures of nature. It’s slightly hard to believe that Respighi, composer of those monumental orchestral tone poems, also wrote these dreamy morsels.

Mr. Cutler might have been crisper in his Italian, but he used the bloom of his voice to nice effect. At some points, he was almost moving.

The American composers on the second half? John Musto, Andre Previn, and Samuel Barber (in that order). In the mid-1980s, Mr. Musto wrote a foursong group called “Shadow of the Blues,” using poems of Langston Hughes. Only a couple of years ago, Mr. Previn wrote Four Songs for Tenor and Piano, using poems of Larkin and Williams. (They were premiered by Anthony Dean Griffey, in a recital at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. The composer was at the piano.)

Mr. Cutler sang all of this music naturally and easily. He showed a certain lack of lower register – but he made up for it with, for example, a neat little head voice. This part of the program suffered from a bit of sameness: Was it the fault of the songs or of the singer? There may be enough blame to go around.

The Barber with which Mr. Cutler concluded was “Despite and Still,” that disturbed and disturbing cycle. Leontyne Price used to sing it surpassingly (as she sang all Barber). Mr. Cutler exhibited fine technical control, and an understanding of the work. Something rather odd happened at the end of the penultimate song, “Solitary Hotel.” That text (Joyce) ends “Queen’s hotel, Queen’s hotel, Queen’s ho …” Afterward, Mr. Cutler laughed like crazy.

I leave it to you to puzzle over.

The crowd wanted encores, and Mr. Cutler gave them more Barber: “O Boundless, Boundless Evening.” The audience kept calling him back, but he kept not singing.

Finally, Mr. Cutler announced that he and Mr. Moore were out of music – sheet music. But they would try to do Strauss’s “Cacilie” from memory. Mr. Moore stumbled a bit, but did his best playing of the evening: certainly his freest. Something similar can be said for Mr. Cutler.

When the song was over, Mr. Cutler crossed himself dramatically and charmingly. The audience could have used yet more, but that was it.

***

On Sunday afternoon, the New York Philharmonic Ensembles laid on one of their smorgasbords. The meal was served at Merkin Hall. Seventeen players participated in five diverse pieces, by five different composers. That, indeed, is a concert.

Or rather, it is a kind of concert – and it comes as a relief, in this age of one-composer programs, and much musicological vanity.

This concert did not go in chronological order. It began with the second half of the 20th century, then went to Faure, Rachmaninoff, and Brahms.

To begin the afternoon was a piece of George Crumb’s, one of his nature jobs.This one was “An Idyll for the Misbegotten” (1985), composed for amplified flute and drums (and those many drums are played by three percussionists). Our program notes quoted Mr. Crumb as saying:

I feel that ‘misbegotten’ well describes the fateful and melancholy predicament of the species homo sapiens at the present moment in time. Mankind has become ever more ‘illegitimate’ in the natural world of plants and animals.

Yeah, whatever.

Those program notes further said something about how Pan,cutting reeds for his panpipes, had raped nature.

Again …

In any case, Mr. Crumb has the flute imitate birds and perhaps other creatures, in a succession of warbles, flutters, and shudders. This is the kind of thing you can hear any night, on any concert stage in New York – those spooky forest sounds emitting from woodwinds. But what you don’t hear every night is a flutist speaking into the mouthpiece of his instrument – as Mr. Crumb has his soloist do. (The text is ancient Chinese – another hallmark of modern composition.)

To me, “An Idyll for the Misbegotten” sounds like one of those stoned grad-school pieces. But Mr. Crumb is obviously skilled, and the piece has, at a minimum, inexorability, as the bass drum keeps up a low rumble, and sometimes not so low. The Philharmonic players – Mindy Kaufman, flute, and Christopher S. Lamb, Daniel Druckman, and Joseph Pereira, percussionists – performed the piece with fluency and care.

Next we heard from Alec Wilder, someone we don’t often hear from.This composer (1907-80) crossed between the jazz and classical worlds, with a couple of other worlds thrown in for good measure. The Philharmonic Ensembles programmed his suite for horn, tuba, and piano – not an everyday combination. Actually, Wilder wrote two of these suites, and on Sunday afternoon we heard the first, composed in 1963.

This is an enjoyable composition, with one movement marked “In a Jazz Manner” – that is a particular treat. Playing were Eric Ralske, horn; Alan Baer, tuba; and Harriet Wingreen, piano. Mr. Ralske was gratifyingly accurate – free ‘n’ easy – and Mr. Baer proved that you can actually be nimble on the tuba. Or rather, he can. Ms. Wingreen made a solid, sympathetic contribution.

That Faure was his marvelous Trio in D minor, Op. 120, whose first movement has a bit of perpetual motion about it – certainly that Faure-like swirl.The second movement, Andantino, is a song, and, being by one of the greatest of all song composers, it’s a smart and beautiful one.The piece ends with a stirring, well-crafted Allegro vivo.

Ms.Wingreen returned for the piece, which was also played by the violinist Fiona Simon and the cellist Nancy Donaruma. There might have been more beauty of sound – and more of a French shimmer – from each of these musicians, but no one outright failed. They performed the work pleasantly.

Rachmaninoff wrote two pieces called “Trio elegiaque,” for violin, cello, and piano. The second, in D minor, commemorates Tchaikovsky, who had just died. The first, in G minor, commemorates nothing – except for Rachmaninoff’s prowess as a composer while still a teen. It is that trio we heard at Merkin, played by Elizabeth Zeltser, violin, Hai-Ye Ni, cello, and Mark Zeltser, piano. (The Zeltsers are father and daughter.)

Mr. Zeltser played commandingly, but also loudly, percussively, sometimes bangingly. His daughter was touchingly heartfelt in this music, if not technically pure. And Ms. Ni was impressive as usual. She makes a first-class cello sound, and, on this occasion, that sound was so soulful – so Russian – she ought to be awarded honorary citizenship. By the Kremlin.

The afternoon ended with Brahms’s String Quintet No. 1 in F, Op. 88, one of the composer’s contented, inventive beauties. Unfortunately, the Philharmonic’s fivesome had a bit of a struggle in it: mainly with pitch.Throughout the work, they were out of tune, or out of tune with one another, sometimes painfully so. But they often breathed together, and there was some good individual playing – as when, in the middle movement, the cellist Eric Bartlett sang out.

I have a feeling the group would have done better with a second chance.