SALZBURG, Austria -The Salzburg Festival is not all sumptuous performances of “Der Rosenkavalier” – although sumptuous performances of “Der Rosenkavalier” are key to its legend. Off the beaten track on Wednesday night was a concert largely devoted to Cristobal Halffter, the Spanish composer. It was held in the Mozarteum – shiny, golden, and regal – under the auspices of the International Summer Academy.

Mr. Halffter is Salzburg’s composer-in-residence this season. Born in 1930, he comes from a prominent musical family. (The family is Spanish, though the name is German.) He is silver-haired, straight-backed, and serious-seeming.

The program began with two works of his for piano, the first of which was “A Person Dies Only When You Forget Him.” The piece, believe it or not, evokes that. It begins with single notes, arranged in ghostly intervals. From these intervals emerges a lament, then something that sounds like a traditional Spanish song – happier. The piece works itself out harmonically in a most engaging way.

The second piece was “Cadenza.” Initially, the pianist plays a lone note – C, as it happens – at various lengths, and with various weights, or attacks. In due course, the music becomes crazy, wild, Lisztian (though atonal). I’m afraid it sometimes seems noise for noise’s sake. “My, that’s a lot of notes, Mr. Halffter!” one wants to say. The work ends with a reprise of single-note repetitions.

The pianist here was Siegfried Mauser, who doubles in life as a distinguished musicologist – a gifted man, Mr. Mauser. In the first work, he made especially shrewd use of the pedal, and in the latter, he handled the notes bravely, and evinced a remarkable coiled feeling. This was intense music, intensely performed.

Following came a group of three songs, “Canciones de al Andalus,” for mezzo-soprano and string quartet. These use medieval Islamic poems. The singer on this occasion was Barbara Ann Martin, a Chicagoan, one of whose teachers was Florence Page Kimball, best known for being the beloved teacher of Leontyne Price. Ms. Martin showed a slightly husky, very soulful instrument, and she did well by Mr. Halffter’s songs (as did the quartet, called the Stadler). The composer himself conducted this ensemble.

The first song is bleak, bitter, stark. It seems to reach far back into time; one senses a great, misty loss. The second song is nervous, churning, foreboding. And what is it about? Three girls picking apples. In the words of an unhappy musician sitting behind me, “Look, the poem simply concerns three girls picking apples, but you just know that someone’s going to die. Why?” As for the final song, it ultimately suggests a barren landscape – barren, yet perilous. Many contemporary songs, and other pieces, are like this. It is a curious template of our time.

We took a break from Mr. Halffter to hear something by Manuel de Falla, the great Spaniard who died when Mr. Halffter was 16. This was Falla’s Concerto for Cembalo, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Violin, and Cello. It was good to hear a chamber work by Falla, as his songs and piano pieces tend to dominate.

Again Mr. Halffter conducted, and the performers were first-rate. At the cembalo was Elisabeth Chojnacka. It is unusual to hear a cembalo ever; it is perhaps especially unusual to hear one in a chamber work from the 1920s. Falla makes good use of it, however, and Ms. Chojnacka plays it expertly.The cembalo was overamplified, but it was indeed prominent, which no doubt Mr. Halffter – or some other organizer – intended.

The second movement of this concerto contains an unexpected – I would venture to say unique – marking: “Lento (giubiloso ed energico).” Those last words – jubilant and energetic – aren’t typical companions of Lento. But that label is appropriate, and these players conveyed the feeling. The next movement is marked Vivace (flessibile, scherzando). (The latter words mean flexible and joking.) It was easy to see why Falla used Italian labels – this music is Italianate, sprightly. Gian Carlo Menotti could have composed parts of it.

After intermission, it was all Halffter – beginning with his “Adieu” for cembalo alone. That might have explained what the Falla piece was doing on the bill. If you are going to have a cembalo onstage in any case …

This piece sounds like a great many other dissonant and busy pieces, but there is, in fact, an element of leave-taking in it. Again, Ms. Chojnacka handled the instrument with skill and gusto. Her unruly mass of bright-orange hair contributes to making her memorable.

Closing Mr. Halffter’s night in the Sun was his “Laments for a Queen of Spain” for String Sextet.This is an interesting, psychological work, though perhaps not one heavy on sheer musical enjoyment. The first of three movements is labeled “The Dream of Reason.” It begins stormily – like a nightmare – but eventually becomes calm (although with bits of recurring storm). The second movement is called “Shadows of Conscience,” and it is fluttery, nervous, in that familiar manner. And the third movement expresses to a remarkable degree its own title: “The Void of the Mind.” It is primordial, yawning, squirmy – a little frightening. It drops for a while into nothingness. Then it appears bewildered, confused.

Mr. Halffter takes rather a long time to make his point, but make it he does. And another point to bear in mind is that the Salzburg Festival cannot live on sumptuous “Rosenkavaliers” alone.

Or can it?