A documentary by Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck. In English and German with English subtitles. Unrated. Opens Monday, August 22, at the Vancity Theatre

Pianomania is the perfect title for this oddly exhilarating documentary, peopled by artists who find pianistic pursuits more than a mere obsession. The modern concert grand is a lover, a foil, a profession, and a harsh taskmistress for the concert and recording artists who call piano tuner extraordinaire Stefan Knüpfer for some serious preperformance tweaking.

By serious, we don’t simply mean the usual hammer-and-tong technology of keeping a fine instrument in tune. A prized employee of Steinway & Sons, at its Hamburg headquarters, Knüpfer is a young, energetic techie with more than a passing resemblance to Frasier’s Niles Crane—both in appearance and in enthusiasm for discussing musical arcana.

Hopping between halls in Germany and Austria, the peripatetic tuner has in-house powwows with top players Lang Lang and Alfred Brendel (shortly before the latter retired). He has much longer sessions with French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard. In hyperarticulate German, they discuss falling wave forms, simulated organ tones, and near–dog whistle modifications to several Steinways in contention for Aimard’s Deutsche Grammophon recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of the Fugue cycle—planned for a full year later.

These convoluted back and forths would grow tedious for nonvirtuosos, except both men are so intensely passionate about issues regarding art at the highest level that the exchanges become both humorous and illuminating. Veteran filmmakers Lilian Franck and Robert Cibis also vary things by introducing snippets of live performances from the pianists involved, as well as pleasant, if rather predictable, street scenes of Vienna and elsewhere.

Plus, there are visits to a collector of antique keyboards who views “the modern music machine” as a kind of concert-hall Sherman tank and with a musical-comedy duo that Knüpfer helps in his spare time—proving that there are limits to seriousness, even when wielding the most rarefied skills.

Watch the trailer for Pianomania.