‘Pianomania” is an enticing but flawed character study of a Viennese piano tuner and technician, Stefan Knupfer. It has a pleasing smallness — it’s cinematic chamber music — that almost makes you overlook its inability to really explain its subject.
Knupfer, who works for Steinway, is an important figure to world-class pianists (Lang Lang and Pierre-Laurent Aimard appear in the movie), who rely on him to adjust their pianos precisely to their liking. Unfortunately, their talk about “color” and “force” and other qualities are unhelpful to the untrained ear. Nonspecialists simply won’t know what these men are talking about, and won’t be able to tell what differences in sound are resulting from Knupfer’s relentless perfectionism.
Still, monomaniacs make for good documentary subjects, and Knupfer’s evident talent and dedication are admirable, as well as entertaining. He is beside himself when unpacking a part called “hammer heads” for a piano that has been shipped overseas. He can tell at a glance that they are about 0.7 millimeters too narrow. “Instead of neurotic,” he says of himself and his clients, “I’d say specialized.” Viewers who possess a Knepferian level of expertise about the instrument will be in heaven.