frenzy-of-exultations:

The Études-Tableaux (“study pictures”), Op. 33 is the first of two sets of piano études composed at the Ivanovka estate between August and September 1911.

Rachmaninov biographer Max Harrison calls the Études-Tableaux “studies in [musical] composition”; while they explore a variety of themes, they “investigate the transformation of rather specific climates of feeling via piano textures and sonorities. They are thus less predictable than the preludes and compositionally mark an advance” in technique.

These sets were intended to be “picture pieces”, essentially “musical evocations of external visual stimuli”. Rachmaninov did not disclose what inspired each piece, stating: “I don’t believe in the artist that discloses too much of his images. Let them paint for themselves what it most suggests.