Presidenti delle Corti Supreme, direttori d’orchestra, interpretazione costituzionale e musicale

On 8 April 1962, a historic dispute erupted between Leonard Bernstein and the young yet already legendary pianist Glenn Gould. The clash concerned Gould’s interpretation of Brahms’s Concerto in D minor, which he insisted on shaping according to his own vision. Bernstein, addressing the audience in a speech before the performance, noted that Gould’s rendition was marked by exceptionally restrained tempi and frequent departures from Brahms’s dynamic indications, making it radically unlike the prevailing tradition. Bernstein crystallized the issue in a provocative question: in a concerto, who leads, the conductor or the soloist? Mutatis mutandis, comparative and constitutional scholars can ask an analogous question about judicial interpretation. What role do Presidents of Supreme Courts play in orienting a court’s interpretive line? Do they meaningfully steer outcomes, or do they exercise mainly procedural and symbolic authority? And what mechanisms allow a “soloist” judge, in principled disagreement, to explore innovative readings of the law? Systems that recognize concurring and dissenting opinions offer an institutionalized outlet for interpretive plurality. Where such opinions are unavailable, however, how is tension between collective unity and individual conviction managed when it becomes acute?