Pianomania - DVD

Film: There are professions that require a particularly great passion on the part of the practitioner. A passion that almost borders on obsession and madness. Such a profession is practiced by Stefan Knüpfer, master tuner and chief technician at Steinway & Sons in Vienna. Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis accompanied the Hamburg native at work for a year, and the result is now coming to stores on DVD and Blu-Ray after a fairly successful theatrical release.

Pianomania is a wonderful documentary. The film focuses on the preparations for the recording of The Art of Fugue by Bach, interpreted by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Not only the search for the perfect instrument, but also various attempts to elicit the perfect sound from it are illuminated here. But Knüpfer's collaboration with other greats of the classical music scene, such as Lang Lang or Alfred Brendel, is also part of the documentary. Igudesman & Joo, whose classical cabaret shows combine musical skill and comedy in a very special way, are also featured, and with the help of Stefan Knüpfer they are always coming up with new ideas for their popular programmes.

On the one hand, it is fascinating to watch Knüpfer pursue his own penchant for perfection with tremendous discipline and passion, but at the same time with a great deal of humour, while also trying to meet the no less high demands of the artists without going completely berserk. For often it is only a matter of the finest nuances, the alteration of which, however, can often take many hours of work. So Pianomania is only on the surface a film about piano tuning and much more a journey to perfect beauty, which could hardly be more entertaining. For lovers of original and interesting documentaries, this award-winning film is therefore also absolutely recommendable!

Picture + Sound: The technical realization is on a very good level for a digitally shot documentary. The noise-free picture is clean and also thanks to the good contrasts even in darker moments has a satisfactory overall sharpness. As for the sound, the good 5.1 mix is especially noticeable during the music tracks. Otherwise, the interviews dominate the rather subdued tonal proceedings. Very good!

Extras: The DVD has some very watchable supplemental extras to offer. It starts off with a short interview with Stefan Knüpfer (approx. 4 min.), as well as Pierre-Laurent Aimard's explanation of Die Kunst der Fuge, as well as two short excerpts from the piece (approx. 10 min.). After that Stefan Knüpfer explains in 20 very interesting minutes the 1 x 1 of the piano, from the hammer heads to the keyboard. A very nice addition to the documentary. Finally, the DVD has the theatrical trailer and four cut scenes (approx. 7 min.) in the program. Very worth seeing!

Conclusion: Pianomania is an extremely entertaining documentary that offers the viewer insight into a world that is probably completely unknown to most. The DVD presents the film in very good picture and sound quality and also offers the interested viewer some very worth seeing extras. Therefore: for lovers of first-class music documentaries absolutely recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp