Shostakovich
Festive Overture
Cello Concerto No 1 in E flat major
Gubaidulina
Fairy-Tale Poem
Rachmaninov
Symphonic Dances
Maximilian Hornung (cello)
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Adam Hickox
Introduced from the stage by Sarah Walker.
British Sign Language-interpreted by Becky Barry
Reviewed by: Nick Breckenfield
Reviewed: 8 August, 2026
Venue: Bristol Beacon, Beacon Hall
Not only Proms debuts from soloist and conductor in this matinée concert, but a debut for me at my first ever out-of-London Prom. They are something of a fixture now, with recurring visits to both Gateshead and Bristol, the latter with the re-building and the renaming of Bristol Beacon, with its two venues, the larger wood-lined Beacon Hall and the smaller Lantern Hall.
Saturday afternoon saw a visit by the Hall’s resident orchestra, the indefatigable Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, in a programme entitled ‘Russian Classics’. Adam Hickox showed his mettle in a Shostakovich first half and a combination of Gubaidulina and Rachmaninov in the second. Gubaidulina’s Fairy-Tale Poem – her first major orchestral work dating from 1971 – tied neatly into Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Fairy-Tale Suite so memorably given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales earlier in the week under Elena Schwarz at the Royal Albert Hall. In Gubaidulina’s case there was a specific Czech fairy-tale in mind: The Little Chalk where the Chalk is fearful that it would only ever be used on a classroom blackboard for boring things, when it really yearned to be drawing castles, land-and-sea-scapes. One day it is engulfed in blackness when pocketed by a child. Out in the street it achieves its aim, when the child draws inspiring images, and in its happiness the chalk is not aware of its own mortality as it is used completely up.
With a small orchestra including piano (though no brass nor double-reed winds), it was perhaps difficult to follow the story arc in the music. A rising clarinet leads the eerie strings at the opening, but the music soon fragments – a hint of Gubaidulina’s distinctive style – before harp strumming and more rhythmic cello and bass pizzicati lead to clarinet and harp shrieks. Vibraphone adds a ghostly ringing, then piano stamping encourages the clarinet to spiral away. Rising chords on flutes and clarinets, followed by rising harp and then low flute and clarinet duet carried the music on, until a string dance made way for a solo vibraphone which must signify our little chalk reaching its nirvana… Whatever, this was evocatively and quietly done by Hickox’s reduced forces, and all the better for being the unknown quantity in this programme.
The other works were better known. Shostakovich’s Festive Overture, pure Soviet bombast (composed, in just three days, for an anniversary of the 1917 Revolution) of the most scurrilous kind, while another facet of Shostakovich’s musical personality was on show in his more intimate style with the First Cello Concerto. With reduced orchestral forces, perfectly balanced with Maximilian Hornung’s cello solo, there was so much nuance and panache in this performance: the Beacon Hall’s acoustic offering a very natural balance between soloist and orchestra, especially in the horn duet with the cello in the second movement leading the extended cadenza which leads into the final movement. Punchy when required, with the staccato opening and silky smooth at others, the hall was able to carry both the intimacy and the thrilling climaxes. Hornung cleared the palate with the Prelude of Bach’s First Cello Suite, charmingly flexible, as his encore.
That boded well for Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and, apart from perhaps a touch lack of impetus in the middle movement, was given a colourful and satisfying performance, epitomised by Kyle Horch’s sinuous alto saxophone in the first movement, where time seemed to stop still. Rachmaninov’s final orchestral score glistened throughout leading to the batter of percussion that helps end the piece, Hickox choosing for the final tam tam crash to fade slowly in the hall’s acoustic before the thunderous and fitting applause.