They say the great is the enemy of the good. That is certainly true in classical music, where established masterpieces are performed repeatedly at the expense of exploring interesting byways.
That tendency has been radically challenged in the Minnesota Orchestra's three-week "American Expressions" festival, which climaxed at Orchestra Hall on Saturday evening.
None of the three works on the program were close to being from repertoire's central casting. Yet put together with the care and attention that Osmo Vänskä and his players mustered, they made a fascinating evening.
Taut, sinewy brass playing powered the opening of William Schuman's New England Triptych, a piece that uses tunes by the 18th-century master of hymnody William Billings.
The plaintive oboe solos of Kathryn Greenbank wove heart-tuggingly through the central meditation, "When Jesus Wept," cushioned by richly polyphonic string textures. The finale riffed on Billings' Revolutionary War anthem "Chester," with saucy, skirling wind figurations sharpening the patriotic senses.
A different America was surveyed in American Nomad, a trumpet concerto by Twin Cities composer Steve Heitzeg.
"Nomad" is a kind of musical travelogue, tracing the imaginary wanderer of Heitzeg's piece from New York City toward the West and California.
The traveler's reactions are focused in the exuberant, multifaceted writing for solo trumpet, laced with jazzy stylings and suffused with the irrepressible curiosity of the American spirit.