Finding the key to perfection
By Stephanie Merry
Friday, Aug 26, 2011
Anyone who has ever complained about working for an impossible-to-please perfectionist can take solace in knowing that Stefan Knupfer probably has it worse. The star of the documentary "Pianomania" is the master tuner at the Vienna, Austria, branch of Steinway & Sons, and he spends his days meeting the demands of big-name classical musicians who dole out vague complaints such as "the note doesn't have a clean disappearing" and "there's no magic in that piano."
What's remarkable - even inspiring - about Knupfer is how much he appears to relish his work. An inveterate tinkerer, the good-natured technician is constantly coming up with solutions to the real (and imagined) problems posed by Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, among other celebrated pianists.
The movie, directed by Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis, starts off slowly, although piano enthusiasts will probably drink up every minute of early scenes that examine what goes into pairing musicians with different pianos. The film picks up speed when a dominant thread emerges that follows Knupfer and Aimard's professional give-and-take leading up to a Bach recording. Preparations begin a year before the event, and Aimard is as fussy as he is incomprehensible, going so far as to come up with his own vocabulary for how he wants notes to sound. ("Let's call this 'the chamber situation,' " he directs.) Watching the pair discuss what would seem incommunicable proves fascinating as the two describe sounds through words and hand gestures.
The behind-the-scenes look also goes under the lid. Shots track how hammers strike strings, as well as Knupfer's painstaking calibration of tuning pins. This work isn't just about small tweaks, however. The camera tracks the technician as he races up and down stairs on the day of the Bach recording, traveling between the audio control room and Aimard's performance space to make constant adjustments to the piano.
The job also includes a fair amount of diplomacy, and it would appear that Knupfer has the patience of a saint. But maybe it's because he cares as much about attaining perfect tones as the musicians do. When one woman calls pianists "neurotic," Knupfer counters with "specialist," a designation he would apply to himself, as well.
It must be those deep feelings and determination that keep Knupfer from losing it when a steady stream of obstacles arises leading up to the Bach recordings. Whatever it is, this is the portrait of a man who loves his work. "Pianists are mostly dissatisfied," he admits at one point, but it's less a lament than a rallying cry.
Contains disturbingly persnickety artistes. In German and English with English subtitles.
