‘Note by Note’ | 3 stars
By ROBERT W. BUTLER
The Kansas City Star
Buying a Steinway concert grand piano will set you back more than $100,000.
After seeing Benjamin Niles’ feature documentary “Note by Note” you’ll be inclined to think it’s a steal at that price. (The film opens today at the Tivoli, following its big win at the recent Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee.)
Subtitled “The Making of Steinway L1037,” the film follows one such instrument from its origins in an Alaskan forest to its debut on the concert stage. The process takes more than a year.
The film centers on the instrument in question, a 9-foot concert grand. But it’s also about a company that clings to its honored traditions, about the aficionados who love and appreciate its creations and about the transforming power of music.
Steinway officials have resisted modernizing their production techniques and reject cost-cutting measures that are the norm elsewhere in the industry; the company’s pianos are handmade much as they were a century ago.
Niles takes us through the various steps of the building process, from the months the frames are cured in a basement controlled for humidity and temperature to the woman who glues the felt on the hammers that will strike the strings.
We get to know the Steinway workers, mostly blue-collar types who came to the company’s factory in Queens, N.Y., knowing little about pianos or music. But over the years — it can take a decade for a worker to become adept at a given area of expertise — the employees develop huge pride in the pianos they turn out. Those who reach a certain skill may find themselves dubbed a “grand finisher” or “bellyman,” just two of the dozens of specialties into which the work force is categorized.
Every now and then Niles drops by Steinway’s showrooms — there’s one in Manhattan near Carnegie Hall and another in the factory — where world-class musicians (among them Harry Connick Jr., Helene Grimaud and Pierre-Laurent Aimard) flit from piano to piano like kids sampling ice cream flavors.
Although every Steinway is built identically, each has its own personality. The goal is to match the instrument to the performer. Steinway’s salesmen know their customers so well they automatically steer Connick to an instrument whose keyboard will give him a bit of resistance.
“I have a tendency to be rather heavy-handed,” Connick confesses. “They know what I like.”
Yes, and people who like music are going to love “Note by Note.”
‘NOTE BY NOTE’ ★★★
Director: Benjamin Niles
Cast: Steinway employees, Harry Connick Jr., Helene Grimaud, Hank Jones, Lang Lang
Rated: No MPAA rating
Running time: 1:21
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PIANO MAN
A representative of Steinway and Sons will speak before and after the 7:15 screenings tonight and Saturday of “Note by Note” at the Tivoli.
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