The concertmaster of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is retiring after a remarkable 34-year tenure, and on his way out the door, he has a few choice words for those in charge of the ensemble he has called his own for so many years. “Paling’s criticisms, which sound like an indictment of the organisation, boil down to this: successive principal conductors were interested only in their own concerts, in what was going on in their own backyard… Matters of artistic policy and the direction of orchestral development were of no interest to them. Everything became, in that sense, short term. Therefore, any long-range strategy or structure was scarcely tenable. There was no artistic head of the RSNO.”