David Michael Hertz explicates the relashy;tionship between the music and poetry of the Symbolist movement, tracing it from its inception in Baudelaire's verse and Wagner's music to its final transformation into Modernism in the works of Schoenshy;berg. Hertz begins by examining the conshy;cept of the period, the well-rounded phrase of verse or music, which was atshy;tacked first in Wagner's use of the leitmoshy;tif and unusual intervals such as the tritone. shy;Such musical elements created a feelshy;ing of emotion directly expressed, unshy;hampered by convention. This approach was further developed by Mallarme, who stripped his verse of its conventional framework in an attempt to create images of pure emotion. Mallarme in turn inshy;fluenced Debussy. Hertz shows that in setting Mallarmes verse, Debussy moved further away from the standard harshy;monic structures of the nineteenth censhy;tury, particularly in his use of tonal ambiguity. shy;Hertz explores the aesthetic of the Symbolist movement as embodied in the unique forms that characterized the era, the tone poem and the lyric play. He dem- onstrates the particular importance of Maeterlinck's Pelleas et Me1isande, which was scored by Debussy.

A revolutionary work difficult to characterize, it speaks gracefully of the transformation of Roshy;manticism into Modernism. Citing examples of art, literature, and music, Hertz finds ultimately that the Symbolist aesthetic came to encompass the entire artistic world. Only a scholar thoroughly at home in both the literary and musical realms and possessing a sovshy;ereign command of the cultural climate and currents of the period would be able to deliver exactly what his subtitle promshy;ises: a musico- literary poetics of the Symshy;bolist movement.