Rachmaninov’s Préludes Op. 23, a collection of ten short yet intricate pieces written between 1901 and 1903, date from a testing time in the composer’s personal and professional life which was bookended by a crisis of creative confidence and financial difficulties.

Piers Lane prefaces the Préludes with three coruscating miniatures by Schubert and Rachmaninov. He reserves his recital’s second half for the sublime Piano Sonata in A D959, completed during the period of Schubert’s final illness.