IMAGINATIVE-SEMANTIC ROLE OF TONAL SUPPORT IN RACHMANINOFF’S <i>THE MISERLY KNIGHT</i>
Semantic potential of tonality continues to be relevant in contemporary musicology. The author considers one of the issues of this broad topic.The paper dwells on the imaginative-semantic meaning of some keys in Sergey Rachmaninoff’s opera The Miserly Knight. D major, D minor, E minor, E flat major and, partly, C minor were semantically important keys for Rachmaninoff in this opera. We can see that their image-bearing interpretations are similar to those of the keys in other Rachmaninoff’s pieces. Such keys’ belonging to a certain imaginative sphere allows us to underline their semantic significance in Rachmaninoff’s works.The paper can be recommended to musicologists and other specialists interested in tonality semantics.