Things are tough at the Newport Music Festival, the classical chamber music bash held each July in the city’s storied mansions. The economic slump has hit the 41-year-old event hard.

As a result, salaries have been slashed 20 percent and longtime director Mark Malkovich has found his business-minded son checking his expense account.

“No one has done that in 40 years, said the senior Malkovich, who does a lot of globe-trotting to ferret out talent. The younger Malkovich, Mark IV, took over the business end of the festival last fall, while Mark III continues to book artists. And he has saved money wherever he can.

At the same time, the festival has lost crucial sponsorship from Yamaha Pianos, which has been a generous contributor. The piano company will still provide instruments but has withdrawn its $60,000 cash gift and now leaves the tuning and trucking of pianos up to the festival, which translates into thousands of dollars in added expenses.

Nevertheless, the Malkoviches have not cut back in quality when it comes to the festival. They have decided that rather than cut concerts, they will hold a full festival, meaning 17 days of music, with three and sometimes four concerts a day — 57 programs in all.

That works out to about 50 artists from 25 different countries.

“To bring artists from all over the world, that’s our calling card,” said the younger Malkovich. “These people are hand-picked by Dad.”

The festival opens Friday with a group of piano trios performed by three festival veterans, pianist Bernadene Blaha, Livia Sohn on violin, and Italian cellist Luigi Piovano.

Saturday, the big guns come out with the return of famed French pianist Jean-Philippe Collard, who will be performing works by Chopin, Debussy and Mussorgsky, the composer’s popular Pictures at an Exhibition. Collard made his American debut in Newport in 1977, and has been back on and off ever since.

His concert is at 9 p.m. in The Breakers. But just before that, at 7 in Salve Regina’s Ochre Court, Blaha and husband Kevin Fitz-Gerald will sit down to a rare two-piano arrangement of Bach’s monumental Goldberg Variations.

The Alliage Quintet, four sax players and a pianist, make their festival debut July 13 with music of Mozart, Bach and selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons — on saxes, no less. As a side note, the soprano sax player is Daniel Gauthier, who performed in Newport in the early 1980s after winning a music competition in his native Canada.

This year the festival is celebrating the centennial of the late Victor Borge, the keyboard funnyman who performed often in Newport, where he’d moor his yacht.

To honor Borge, one of the most loved entertainers of his generation, there will be a July 16 program of his compositions, along with performances by a couple of his grandchildren. Anders Borge, who has worked in the festival office, will play Debussy’s Claire de Lune and his granddaughter Johanne Kesten will sing, of all things, “Walking in Memphis,” the first time a country offering has graced a festival program.

“The musical gene came out in them,” said the senior Malkovich.

But the most touching moment of the night will no doubt come when pianist John Bayless performs his In Search of Lost Time, which is dedicated to Borge. Bayless, who has dazzled Newport audiences over the years with his bold improvisations, recently suffered a stroke and has impaired movement on his right side. So he wrote a piece for left hand alone. It will be short, but no doubt sweet.

There will also be two programs of Mendelssohn, who was born 200 years ago. Those are July 14 and 17.

German pianist Michael Endres will be at The Breakers the night of July 17 with a program that includes music of Mozart, Schubert, Ravel and Godowsky, a taxing transcription of a Strauss waltz.

Endres will be back at the piano the evening of July 18 to accompany Austrian baritone Peter Edelmann in Schubert’s stark and brooding song cycle, Winterreise, or Winter’s Journey.

This year, the annual fundraiser has been scaled back a bit. Instead of a lavish dinner and a concert afterwards, the festival will be presenting Russian pianist Alexander Romanovsky in his American debut July 22 at 4 p.m. at Belle Mer Salon on Goat Island. The program booklet quotes an Italian music critic who called Romanovsky a “genius,” and said he perhaps plays better than Horowitz. Malkovich senior said he was sent a tape of Romanovsky’s playing and was “knocked over” by it.

“He’s not like most Russians who are so virtuosic,” he said. “This is pure music.”

Romanovsky will be playing Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, a specialty of his, and selections by Rachmaninoff, including the hugely difficult second sonata in B-Flat Minor.

A reception follows the concert at 6 p.m. Tickets are $100.

Romanovsky’s concert will be followed at 9 at The Breakers by a recital by Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer, who’ll be tackling the Funeral March Sonata of Chopin among other works. Elvekjaer returns July 23 as part of the Trio con Brio Copenhagen, which will be heard in piano trios of Haydn, Mendelssohn and Dvorak, the well known “Dumky” in E Minor.

American pianist Edward Auer gives an all-Chopin program July 24, and there will be more Chopin on July 25, including the cello sonata and G Minor piano trio, two of his lesser known compositions. That’s at 4 p.m., and at 9 you can catch the return of the thrilling Hungarian pianist Gergely Baganyi, who has planned a program of Chopin and Liszt.

And to finish things off with a bang, the brilliant Argentinean organist Hector Olivera, a consummate showman, returns July 26 at The Breakers for a program that concludes with excerpts from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Also on tap is an arrangement of Ravel’s Bolero and the towering Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor by Bach.

Ticket prices remain the same this year despite the economic pinch, mostly $35 for daytime concerts and $40 for evening events at The Breakers. Those start at 9 p.m.. There are also a few $25 programs.

“We’re looking at really thin margins this year,” said the younger Malkovich, who is hoping the box office this summer remains at least level with last year. He said the festival has kept the amount of money for the artists the same and cut everything else.

“We’ve done a lot of belt-tightening this year,” he said.

For tickets, call (401) 849-0700 or visit www.newportmusic.org.