For over forty years, Dresden was the center of Caspar David Friedrich’s life and, along with its surroundings, served as both his source of inspiration and subject matter. In honor of his 250th birthday, the Staatliche Dresden are dedicating the exhibition ‘Caspar David Friedrich. Where it all began’ to the most significant painter of Romanticism.
At the opening of the exhibition, the approximately 800 guests should be able to immerse themselves in the world of Caspar David Friedrich through an audio experience, instead of the usual approach of using music, such as in the contemporary musical style of the artist's time. This time, natural sounds will bring us closer to the painter: an authentic and variable soundscape of natural sounds that might have surrounded Caspar David Friedrich as he sketched or painted outdoors.
As the event venue for the opening, the atrium of the Albertinum was a particularly interesting space acoustically. With an area of 1,300 square meters and a height of 17 meters, it offers impressive dimensions. The main materials, stone and glass, create a sophisticated yet pleasant acoustic environment. Thanks to the long reverberation time of several seconds, the room enables an extraordinary depth staging of sounds, making the spatial impression of a forest acoustically perceptible.
The soundscape of birdsong, animal calls, footsteps, wind, rustling leaves, and much more accompanied the opening event from start to finish, including during the speeches. To avoid the risk of inadvertently comical moments from pre-produced sound events randomly overlapping with the context of the speeches, a live performance with direct control over individual sounds was essential.
For this, the 88 keys of a master keyboard were assigned various sound events, allowing them to be "played" live on the instrument and controlled in terms of intensity, direction, distance, and other parameters. During the course of the vernissage, the soundscape gradually shifted from the sounds of daytime animals to an atmospheric nighttime ambiance in the forest.
The surround control and spatial distribution of sounds made it possible to place sounds that tend to compete with the frequency of human speech in the rear or side areas of the sound field, ensuring consistent speech intelligibility. At the same time, the surround production allowed individual birds, entire flocks, or wind to move through the room and soar over the audience, creating a realistic spatial impression.
