Editing Symbolism (movement) (section)

===Music===

Symbolism had some influence on music as well. Many symbolist writers and critics were early enthusiasts of the music of [[Richard Wagner]],<ref>Jullian Phillipe, ''The Symbolists'', 1977, p. 8</ref> an avid reader of Schopenhauer.

[[File:Waterhouse, John William - Saint Cecilia - 1895.jpg|thumbnail|upright=1.2|[[John William Waterhouse]], ''Saint Cecilia'', 1895]]

The symbolist aesthetic affected the works of [[Claude Debussy]]. His choices of ''[[libretto|libretti]]'', texts, and themes come almost exclusively from the symbolist canon.  Compositions such as his settings of ''[[Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire]]'', various [[lieder|art songs]] on poems by Verlaine, the opera ''[[Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)|Pelléas et Mélisande]]'' with a libretto by [[Maurice Maeterlinck]], and his unfinished sketches that illustrate two Poe stories, ''[[The Devil in the Belfry]]'' and ''[[The Fall of the House of Usher]]'', all indicate that Debussy was profoundly influenced by symbolist themes and tastes.  His best known work, the ''[[Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune]]'', was inspired by Mallarmé's poem, ''[[L'après-midi d'un faune (poem)|L'après-midi d'un faune]]''.{{cn|date=August 2022}}

The symbolist aesthetic also influenced [[Alexander Scriabin]]'s compositions. [[Arnold Schoenberg]]'s ''[[Pierrot Lunaire]]'' takes its text from German translations of the symbolist poems by [[Albert Giraud]], showing an association between German expressionism and symbolism. [[Richard Strauss]]'s 1905 opera ''[[Salome (opera)|Salomé]]'', based on the play by [[Oscar Wilde]], uses a subject frequently depicted by symbolist artists.