If you like English and American song, Saturday night was your night. In Zankel Hall, Anthony Dean Griffey sang a program of Frank Bridge, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Andre Previn, Samuel Barber, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Aaron Copland. (The Copland was Set 1 of “Old American Songs,” which are arrangements.)

The Previn? This was a new set, Four Songs for Tenor and Piano, using poems of Philip Larkin and William Carlos Williams (two each).They were receiving their premiere, having been commissioned by a couple named Koo for Mr. Griffey. These songs are, in a word, Previnesque: simple, neat, smart, a little understated – like the composer himself. And they smell just slightly of the cocktail lounge. They include a sense of patter, and also of nebbishy introspection. Mr. Previn is a markedly consistent composer. He has been recognizable for many decades.

Will his Four Songs last? Will tenors be singing them 50 years from now? I’m afraid I can’t make such a prediction. I cannot even say who will win an election a week from tomorrow.

Anthony Dean Griffey is a tenor from North Carolina, and he was making his New York recital debut. He has had a varied career, in which Mr. Previn has figured: He created Mitch in the composer’s “Streetcar Named Desire.”

Mr. Griffey is possessed of a beautiful lyric voice, which in the early going on Saturday night was a little overvibratoed, but which soon settled into its natural, focused self. He is an easy singer, meaning that he doesn’t force – doesn’t need to. His intonation is excellent, and so is his breath control. There is surely a relation. He is an intelligent shaper of songs. He is also a liberal gesticulator. My view is that a little of this goes a long way in a recital, but that is a matter of taste.

Unfortunate about Mr. Griffey’s sung English – and this entire evening was in English – is that it tends to be stilted. It tends to be over pronounced, too fastidious, which is especially disconcerting in the more relaxed American songs.

The Bridge group was dark-inflected, ending with “Music, When Soft Voices Die,” which is not the most famous song on that Shelley poem, that being Roger Quilter’s. The Griffes set was the wonderfully, weirdly sensuous “Three Poems of Fiona MacLeod.” And the Barber? Three Songs, Op. 10, using poems of James Joyce. The first is “Rain Has Fallen,” which is less frequently performed than the other two. Like much of Barber, it requires aching lyricism, which Mr. Griffey could amply provide. And it was nice to hear these songs sung by a tenor – they are more commonly sung by a baritone (the range of the composer himself). (Barber was that rare composer in history who was also a singer.)

The second song is “Sleep Now,” which Mr. Griffey rendered almost perfectly. It was his best singing of the night – beautiful, controlled, astute. He conveyed the right restlessness, which Barber indicates with starting and stopping.

I will now take back, partially, a remark above: In the third and final song, “I Hear an Army,” we perhaps heard the want of a baritone. Amid the battlefield tumult, I, for one, still heard that beautiful lyric tenor. Beautiful tenorial lyricism is not necessarily ideal here.

Beginning the second half of the program was Vaughan Williams’s “On Wenlock Edge” (to Housman’s “Shropshire Lad”). This is exposed music, in an exposed – and exposing – hall, Zankel. Mr. Griffey was amazingly clean, and accurate, and moving. Few are the tenors who could pull this off.

The first two Copland songs are “The Boatmen’s Dance” and “The Dodger,” which Mr. Griffey gave some character. Odd, however, that he could not relax his English, even for these songs. And when he got to “Long Time Ago,” he proved that he is at his best when he can be lyrical. Concluding the set is “I Bought Me a Cat,” a comic song that fell a bit flat. Also, one may sing the notes in this song; Mr. Griffey rather talked his way through.

Seeing as he had a guitar with him – more on that in a moment – he might as well have done some Dowland as an encore, which he did: “Come Again,” which was exquisite. Interesting that a North Carolina boy should be more at home in John Dowland than in “I Bought Me a Cat.” And then, “This Little Light o’ Mine.” This is a quite personal song, and one feels a little churlish criticizing anyone’s interpretation – but I had never heard anyone sing “going to let it shine,” with the “going” totally straight, totally white bread. And the “t’s” in “let it” almost hurt.

Mr. Griffey had several accompanists, mainly the pianist Warren Jones, who was a model of professionalism. Daniel Panner was the violist in the Bridge songs. The Fountain Ensemble assisted in the Vaughan Williams. The Copland was performed in a new guitar arrangement by Johannes Tonio Kreusch, who also played the guitar. (The Dowland should really have a lute, but a guitar’s close enough.) And Andre Previn stepped in to accompany his own songs.

He played elegantly, musically, as usual; and his tenor served him splendidly. We are in a fine age for lyric tenors: Michael Schade, Christoph Pregardien, Matthew Polenzani, Ian Bostridge, Mr. Griffey. Anyone who is complaining, shouldn’t.

***

Andras Schiff, the Hungarian pianist, has been spending time at Zankel Hall, and with Czech composers. A week ago, he led a chamber music program consisting of Dvorak, Janacek, and Smetana. On Thursday, he will play a recital featuring the second two of those composers. (That event will be in Carnegie’s main auditorium.) And last Friday night, he played with the Panocha Quartet, in Zankel.

The members of this quartet met at the Prague Conservatory, forming their group in 1968 – a fateful year. They take their name from Jiri Panocha, the first violinist. How that came about must be a fairly interesting story.

On Friday night, they handled the first half of the concert without Mr. Schiff, presenting the two string quartets of Janacek. The first is nicknamed “Kreutzer Sonata,” after the novella of Tolstoy. You can search for a program in this work, and find one – but it is not necessary to discern a program; the string quartet works regardless.

The Panocha’s sound was none too pretty, which was to the players’ credit: That sound was adaptable, at the service of the music. It helped convey Jana cekian eeriness and anxiety. In the first movement, it could be buzzy, then creepy-smooth. The second movement had a horror-movie intensity. The work never lets you rest, never lets you sit easy. It keeps you on edge till the end. And that’s what the Panocha Quartet did – keep the hall on edge.

The String Quartet No. 2 is nicknamed “Intimate Letters,” and here again you can search for, and discern, a program – but you don’t have to. Once more, we have creepiness, spookiness, eeriness. The Panocha offered melting lyricism mixed with mental agitation. In the second movement, we had a hint of the folk, and some glad-heartedness – and then some stringy brawn. The amazing final movement is childlike, and melancholy, and yearning, and peppy. The players communicated all of that. They worked well together, never fighting one another. (They have been “married” for over 35 years.) Each understood his own part, and the work as a whole.

Both string quartets constitute a lot of Janaycek, for one evening. But if we are to hear them, back to back, we might as well hear them from this quartet.

After intermission, Mr. Schiff joined them for Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A, Op. 81, one of the most pleasurable works in the entire chamber repertory. The first movement breathed geniality, coming out in an orderly, flowing stream. These five expressed enough, but they were economical. There was no excess whatever. Gratifyingly, the strings never got too thick.

Noticeable in the second movement – Dumka – was that these players never overdid the folk element. Native players (and we had four of them onstage, plus a neighbor) are seldom guilty of such indulgence; they tend to treat such music more straightforwardly than others. (See the conductors Talich, Anycerl, Neumann, and Kubelik.)

In the third movement – Scherzo-furiant – our players weren’t always together, but they did not collapse, and Mr. Schiff’s playing was especially characterful here. The Finale you might say was nothing special – but it was tasteful, enjoyable, and, again, devoid of extremes. One had the sense of honest musicians performing a great and standard work of which they have not tired.