His father traveled a lot, he was a mathematician and geologist in person, and also a lecturer at home, “but the interesting thing is actually…”, that’s how he liked to start his lectures. Lars had a map of the world, so he always put the pin where dad was researching.
The mother was a teacher, argumentative, very sharp-tongued, and always willing to bring the discussion to the point closest to her own point of view. She didn’t have much time for Lars, so Grandma Erni was the most important woman in his life for a long time. She taught him manners and gave him so much love that he, normally shy, was never embarrassed about feeling lonely. Not even when the parents separated and the mother found a partner, because the family as a whole stuck together. On Sundays, at the breakfast table, week after week, they celebrated the big we-can-talk-about-everything symposium. There was a loud argument, the more violent, the livelier, because no one sulked just because the other had a different opinion.
Lars started playing the piano and taught himself to play the saxophone because he really wanted to play in the school orchestra. “You should be able to play the piano,” sang Johannes Heesters, “if you play the piano, you’re lucky with the women, because the gentlemen who can make music quickly gain the women’s trust.” Lars sang the song in liked to go to parties in later years because he found a lot of confidants after he got past puberty and developed more feelings for girls than he ever thought he could. Hearts just flew to him, preferably with Chopin ballads, and he collected them diligently.
Over the head to the heart, diligence beats talent
It was easy for him in love, but in music he worked for everything. Over the head to the heart, diligence beats talent. He read a lot. He thought about what he was doing and found his new instrument through thinking: the double bass. A pragmatic decision, because the double bass is needed in every orchestra and it needed an orchestra, at least an ensemble. Lars was a great musician but not a soloist, he knew his limits. Above all, he was a virtuoso in telling the conductor what to do. What did not please every conductor was that one member of the orchestra, preferably in rehearsal before anyone else, questioned his authority. But for Lars, authority was always a matter of negotiation, the better argument counts, not office or dignity. He agreed with his mother that his own point of view is usually the more sensible one.[DE1]
Lars played in many orchestras and always cut a fine figure. Lars and his bass just fit, in terms of size and temperament. Never push yourself to the fore, but steadily and reliably lay the foundation that supports the others when making music. He taught, accompanied well-known soloists and organized events[DE2] , always gave everything, seemingly effortlessly. But how the others saw him and how he felt himself were two different things. There was a silent desire for lasting harmony. And so one day the double bass player found himself in love with an oboist. Lars always stated that he had been in love from the start, while Nicola, according to her late confession, initially found him too vehement, too far-reaching and decisive in his cleverness. He was also a self-confessed non-dancer. “With him I would have to watch French problem films all the time” – an unfounded fear, since it was a blockbuster he invited her to see the first time.
So they came together, which made his life much richer, and hers too, because the two quickly agreed to expand the duet into a small ensemble. From then on, Lars did with his two sons what his father had done with him: he talked to them about everything and everything. But he was also cuddly, approachable, and strict in a way that both understood as a loving invitation to become independent.
So his decision to work as a high school teacher came as no surprise. He was old enough now not to be fooled by the students. But he was so young, and in many ways remained so childlike, that he had no trouble putting himself in the hopes and concerns of adolescents. Because the world has been very difficult in recent years, and it was good to have someone in Lars who didn’t immediately know the answer to everything, but still had time for every question.
With his friends, on the other hand, he stayed the same. He still liked to pose as a know-it-all. And what he didn’t know, he didn’t show. But he was on an equal footing with his students without currying favor. And so he always got top marks for his behavior. Surprisingly, also from the mother-in-law. Thanks to his cheerful nature, he was her favorite, and since he was able to get things done, even his father-in-law praised him. What sometimes got on my nerves: his art of procrastination, the last emptying of the mailbox was still early enough. And he couldn’t throw anything away. The old chest of drawers is still good enough, a lot fits in there, just bring it into the house until everything has been delivered at some point. He would have cleared out, at some point, for sure, if the illness hadn’t set a limit for him that he couldn’t change.
The diagnosis was a verdict: cancer. He hoped. He wanted to see the good side of it: finally time for the wedding, long planned, repeatedly postponed, because the real yes to each other was the children. On the edge of the world, beyond Spandau, in the house that his grandparents had built into the pastures, fields and paddocks, where he was born, that’s where he died. He is buried with Grandma Erni, to whom he always went when his heart was sad.
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