Fuori dalla terribile fossa dei serpenti

In this contribution, I analyse two different musical experiences in “total institutions”: firstly, a “Festival della canzone” organised at the Provincial Psychiatric Hospital of Maggiano (Lucca) between 1964 and 1969; secondly, the current activities of Orkestra ristretta, the musical band of Sollicciano prison (Florence). For Maggiano, the historical reconstruction is based on articles from the internal magazine «La Pantera», and on published or unpublished scientific contributions and congressional communications by doctors and assistants. For Sollicciano, instead, I interviewed Massimo Altomare, a well-known Italian singer/guitarist and band leader of Orkestra ristretta, trying to obtain an emic perspective on the musical activities in the Florentine prison and on the social dynamics underlying it. To compare these two scantly known experiences, I use concepts and tools from the world of community music and Erving Goffman’s well-known theories about “institutional ceremonies”. I aim to outline some general trends concerning the roles played by musicking in total institutions, highlighting how it can help articulate the relationships among patients and prisoners and those between the institution and the “world outside”.