DOK Leipzig - Contemporary German Documentary - A Selection

Pianomania’ is a film about love, perfection and a little bit of madness. ‘The tone isn’t breathing.’ – complains pianist Pierre - Laurent Aimard, distraught. This is a typical sentence in Steinway & Sons’ chief technician and Master Tuner Stefan Knüpfer’s normal work day. Each piano has its own personality, each piece demands its own timbre, and every interpretation has a particular temperament. ‘Pianomania’ takes the viewer along on a humorous journey into the secret world of sounds, and accompanies Stefan Knüpfer at his unusual job with world famous pianists like Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel, Rudolf Buchbinder, Till Fellner and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, among others. To find the right instrument with the necessary qualities, compatible with the vision of the virtuoso, to tune it to perfection and to finally get it on the stage, needs nerves of steel, boundless passion, and the extraordinary competence in translating words into sounds.