We have two second hand bookshops to thank for enriching our cultural heritage: First, one somewhere in Germany where Carl Orff came across a book catalogue referring to a 13th century Austrian manuscript of songs and poems, giving birth to his cantata Carmina Burana; second, one in Barcelona where, in 1890, the 13-year-old Pablo Casals found an neglected copy of the scores of JS Bach’s six cello suites.

He spent 12 years studying and performing them before finally recording them in the late 1930s and re-introducing them to the world.

German cellist Maximilian Hornung chose two of the suites – the sunny well-known first and the darker dramatic fifth – to bookend his Australian debut solo recital as part of the Utzon Music series in Sydney Opera House.

Maximilian Hornung in the Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Photo © Cassandra Hannagan

The 40-year-old protégé of Anne-Sophie Mutter had given us a delightful taste of what was come when, as an encore after his recent superb reading of Shostakovich’s first concerto with the SSO, he played the much-loved Prelude from Suite No. 1.