Tobias Schiessler

Lars Karlin's arrangements are a great, indispensable enrichment for our ensemble. On the one hand, Lars himself is an excellent trombonist, and on the other hand, as a long-time member, he knows most of us personally as well as trombonistically. The resulting individual parts, some of which are " tailor-made" for the respective players, therefore always make special demands on all of us. Lars likes to demand more in terms of tempo, dynamics and range than the each player is actually able to deliver and thus, relying on our ambition, consciously pushes the development of different abilities.

The first version of "Pictures at an Exhibition" still seemed impossible to us during the first rehearsal and performance. As time went by, however, we noticed that little by little many things could be realised and the work eventually became a major repertoire piece for the ensemble (of course, further "necessary" revisions by Lars followed and each time passages with an even higher semitone appeared).

The last major arrangement by Lars actually involved an extension of the instrumentation used by us from bass, tenor and alto trombones, to soprano trombones. These are more or less slide trumpets in terms of bore, length and range.

In the arrangement of Wagner's "Lohengrin", this was intended on the one hand for an "orchestral part" and on the other hand for the arias of Elsa of Brabant. The latter fell to me and I consequently began preparing for it well in advance, first with the indiscriminate purchase of two instruments on the internet and with the ordering of different hybrid mouthpieces. This was followed by weeks of holding out long notes and approaching to the parts.

Finally, the rehearsal phase and first performance will remain forever in my special memory.
At the concert at the Landshut castle ruins in the MoselMusikfestival, during the prelude of Lohengrin and before the first aria of Elsa, I stood on stage, playing and contemplating at the same time: "What will I do if it just doesn't work?".
" Begin, break off, apologise, and exit" was indeed my "worst-case scenario". Rarely had I felt less ready to perform.
The fact that it then started quite well and also worked until the end showed once again that it is worthwhile to go beyond the limits of the imagination and to dare to " dive into the deep end", even if perhaps not everything initially succeeds completely as hoped...but otherwise a Lars Karlin would not be completely satisfied either...