Stefan Kupfer (right) gets under the hood
“PIANOMANIA” My rating: B (Opens Sept. 30 at the Tivoli)
93 minutes | No MPAA rating
Calling Stefan Kupfer a piano tuner is like calling Dale Ernhardt a motorist.
It’s accurate as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Over the course of a year the documentary “Pianomania” follows Kupfer, a Steinway technician, as he goes about his business of tinkering with pianos at Vienna’s historic Konzerthaus.
It’s not tinkering for tinkering’s sake. His clients are keyboard heavy hitters like Lang Lang, Alfred Brendel and especially the demanding Pierre-Laurent Aimard — musicians who know precisely what they want from their instruments and expect Kupfer to deliver.
Here’s another auto racing metaphor: Kupfer is like a one-man pit crew. He gets under the hood. He tightens a string here and loosens a screw there. He’ll pull an engine and replace it, so to speak.
Butler's Cinema Scene 