Excerpts from La Stampa
from La Stampa, Friday, January 30 1959, n°26, pag. 4:
Second contestant: Mr John Cage, from New York, strange and futuristic music composer and performer. Mr Cage sat by a special piano tweaked [they should have said prepared] with nails, screws, elastic bands drawing unusual chords from it. The piece was entitled Amores
and it sounded like a funeral march. He participated as an expert of poisonous and edible mushrooms. He had no hesitations, hence he easily succeeded until the end.
John Cage, an American very fond of mushrooms, left a very good impression. The lanky contestant revealed that he had begun getting into mushrooms while he was walking in the Stony Points woods near his house. He is now in Italy to perform experimental music concerts and play an extremely weird composition of his made of shrilling squeaks and dreary rumbles via an expressly modified piano.
( www.johncage.it)