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In this review of the European premiere of John Cage’s Concert for Piano and Orchestra in Cologne, the reviewer describes the Concert as depicting “the collision of extreme phenomena” (das Zusammenprallen extremer Phänomene), a description that was typical for the reception of Cage’s work in the 1950s. That is, far from accepting sounds as formalist exercises in chance and indeterminacy, many critics could not resist the temptation to hear them as representations of violence (as clashes, collisions, fights, and struggles). Though Cage did not endorse these types of interpretations, his interest in Antonin Artaud during the 1950s that he shared with Morton Feldman, David Tudor, and M. C. Richards suggests that such associations may not have been far from his mind. The reviewer also represents the performer’s choices as “improvisation,” a word Cage distanced himself from during these years. He considered the term to have unpalatable associations with ego-driven choices even as he turned to improvisational performances during the 1960s.