Music Reviews : Cambridge Buskers

There’s a difference between poking fun at music and having fun with music. What makes the Cambridge Buskers unique is their ability to do both at the same time.

Friday night in Beckman Auditorium at Caltech, Michael Copley tooted on flutes, recorders, carinas and whatnots while Dag Ingram accompanied on his trusty $10 accordion. Together, the Cambridge Buskers offered an evening of 29 toe-tapping arrangements of favorite classics, plus two encores.

Between clowning, gags and whistling or singing to fill in melody lines too high or low for their instruments, Copley and Ingram emerged as superb musicians, second to none in the art of busking (buskers are strolling entertainers).

Flashy numbers that show off Copley’s bravura on the recorder and Ingram’s charming showmanship proved the best vehicles. Among these were convincing performances of the Overture to “Die Fledermaus,” the “Largo al Factotum” from Rossini’s “Barbiere di Siviglia” and the finale of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, in which Copley at times played two recorders simultaneously.

Other comic arrangements delivered pat punch lines, such as an abridged version of the Pachelbel Canon that ends abruptly with the sound of a cannon (a vocal effect provided by Ingram). Sometimes the jokes were more sophisticated, as with a Mozart Horn Concerto precariously performed on a small flute carved from an animal horn.