Rachmaninov composed his two sets of Études-Tableaux Op. 33 and Op. 39 in 1911 and 1916-17 respectively, so they pre-date his move from Russia to the United States. They are collections of miniatures. The composer was tight-lipped about the specific inspiration of each piece (whether a painting, a poem or book), except for five that Respighi orchestrated in the 1930s.

The composer might well have titled these pieces Preludes, as Debussy did with his similar sets of short musical impressions (written in 1910 and 1913), but the melancholy Russian had already completed 24 Preludes that had no extra-musical associations, so he invented the descriptor ‘études-tableaux’. The pieces mark an advance...