Sergei Rachmaninoff embarked on his compositional career with five short piano pieces, which he presented for the first time in December 1892 in a concert in Charkow (now Kharkiv). The second piece, with the unremarkable title “Prélude”, is the famous Prélude in C sharp minor which was soon played throughout the world and was to become Rachmaninoff’s most-performed encore. But the other pieces, quite different in character, continue to enjoy general popularity amongst pianists to this day. For t...