Geballe Dissertation Prize Fellow Joseph Cadagin defends his dissertation, “Through Ligeti’s Looking-glass: The Composer’s Musical Reflections on Lewis Carroll."

After World War II, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-glass (1871) transcended their origins as Victorian children’s literature. Artists and intellectuals saw the postmodern condition reflected in Carroll’s looking-glass. Composers of Western art music, especially, found intriguing potential in the author’s poems; hundreds of Carroll-related works, most of them vocal settings, have emerged. 

This dissertation examines the influence of Carroll on one of the leading figures of late-20th century music, Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923–2006).