Alec Wilder, one of America's most engaging and underappreciated composers, died of cancer on Christmas Eve in 1980 in Gainesville, Fla. — "just in time," said a friend, "to keep from becoming better known."

The composer of remarkably original music in many forms — concertos, operas, chamber music, jazz suites and hundreds of popular songs ("I'll Be Around," "It's So Peaceful in the Country") — who grew up in Rochester, N.Y., refused to popularize his music. He maintained that those who use music to make money and achieve fame are contemptible.

Wilder's music was beyond category — too classical for many jazz fans and too jazzy for "longhairs." It was the Octets for woodwinds, brief works composed between 1938 and 1947 with witty titles such as "Jack, This My Husband" and "It's Silk, Feel It!" that put Wilder on the musical map. And it didn't hurt that the conductor of the 1945 Columbia recording of six of the Octets was Frank Sinatra, then at the height of the first phase of his career. Sinatra loved Wilder's music — they were good friends — and in later years he recorded many of Wilder's songs.

For their buoyancy, their wit, their rhythmic zest and melodic charm, there is nothing quite like the Wilder Octets in all of American chamber music, and happily, all those qualities came to the fore in the performance of 10 of them by Minnesota Orchestra musicians Saturday night at Orchestra Hall as part of Sommerfest.

Clarinetist Timothy Zavadil acted as host, announcing the numbers and joining the group on bass clarinet.

These are tricky works to play, especially in such a big hall, but the ensemble was always cohesive, the music flowed effortlessly, and those all-important before-the-beat syncopations hit their mark precisely without overemphasis.

Bassist David Williamson found the drollest accents in "Bull Fiddles in a China Shop," Kevin Watkins sustained a happy bounce on percussion, and John Livingston demonstrated that a harpsichord can actually swing.

At the 8 p.m. concert, violinist Nicola Benedetti and cellist Leonard Elschenbroich joined the festival's artistic director Andrew Litton, acting as both conductor and pianist, in Beethoven's Triple Concerto, a work once thought as a curio — lesser Beethoven. It is certainly more than that, as this energetic, warmhearted performance proved. Balances were generally even — one of the hurdles in this work — though Litton's piano occasionally covered the string soloists. Elschenbroich handled the most demanding of the three parts with subtle color and expression while Benedetti contributed clean, silky sound even in the highest register.

With Litton at the podium, the orchestra ended the evening with a noble and spacious account of Brahms' Symphony No. 4, marred only by overly flexible tempos in the finale — a few too many gearshifts.

Michael Anthony is a Twin Cities classical music critic.