Ludwig Berger
Das Hellhörige Haus
Radio documentary – house and garden recordings, spoken word

After both my parents died, I spent a last summer listening to my childhood home — the deer in the garden, the wasps in the attic, old family cassettes, and the vanished sounds that are only remembered.

SWR Kultur 2026


The house stands in an Alsatian village. Through thin walls and wooden floorboards, every sound passes: wood pigeons on the TV antenna, air traffic, church bells down in the village, the hum in the electrical cabinet. Old family cassettes mingle with the current non-human inhabitants of the house and garden. Arranged alphabetically from Ausatmen (Exhaling) to Zyklus (Cycle), the piece is an acoustic farewell alphabet: 21 sound miniatures of a house that will soon be emptied and sold. An autoethnographic inventory of a domestic ecosystem, told through field recordings, family archives, and spoken text — tracing a lifetime of listening in a place that hears everything.

Narrator: Veronika Bachfischer
Recorded voices: Helke Berger, Johannes Berger, Ludwig Berger, Wilfried Berger, Danielle Chevaux, as well as local insects, cats, deer, and birds.
Editor: Michael Lissek
Production: Südwestrundfunk (SWR) 2026