I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms, a recent book by Nancy Shear (Regalo Press, 2025) is more than a romp through a heyday of the Philadelphia Orchestra during her five year tenure as a trailblazing orchestra librarian as well as with the Curtis Institute of Music. “At nineteen, I was now working simultaneously for two of the greatest conductorial rivals of the twentieth century, Eugene Ormandy and Leopold Stokowski. When the Philadelphia Orchestra members heard that I was working for Stokowski, they nicknamed me ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,’ referring both to his conducting ability and to the section in Fantasia,” she says.
Shear’s unpretentious writing draws you into an assortment of happenings, on and off the concert stage that read like a tell-all about her association with Stokowski, as well as insight about the symbiotic connection between orchestra player and librarian. Her recollections are peppered with snippets about some parental issues and there is enough scoop about Mstislav Rostropovich, too. But Stokowski, whom she idolized is the luminary who gave her that lovin’ feeling (in a platonic and aesthetic sense) despite an age difference of sixty-four years at the time of their initial meeting.
Shear’s insatiable love of classical music without much money to spare began as a fledging cello student sneaking into Academy of Music and Robin Hood Dell venues to hear Philadelphia Orchestra concerts, rehearsals and meet backstage teams. But soon the orchestra’s librarian and assistant conductor took notice and started showing this groupie the ins and outs of score preparation. Shear’s work as copyist evolved as did friendships and responsibilities for many prominent musicians including Stokowski. Her extended career includes gigs as journalist, classical music broadcaster and current President of New York-based Nancy Shear Arts Services.
The book conjures up bygone days of the 1960’s and 1970’s classical music scene when artists like Rubinstein, Milstein, Rabin, Fournier, Szeryng, Serkin, du Pré and Solti graced the concert stage. Shear provides vividly detailed private conversations taken from notes and memory to recount her golden age of musical encounters with Stokowski and Rostropovich and offer observations about their projects and tendencies with whimsical humor and savvy musical insight. Tidbits include a visit to Moscow in 1970 in search of Rostropovich and hanging out at Stokowski’s pads in New York and England.
For those who only know of Stokowski as a conductor who shook the hand of mickey mouse in the classic movie Fantasia (1940), Shear talks of his legendary artistic, idiosyncratic and gossip worthy life (of which affaires d’ amour included three wives and a tryst with Greta Garbo) using on the spot conversations, research and quixotic moments from performances. She mentions a concert in 1965 when Stokowski conducted the world premiere of Ives fourth symphony with the American Symphony Orchestra. “After the Carnegie Hall performance, Stokowski had just turned toward the audience to speak when a sneeze exploded throughout the hall. ‘That was not in the score,’ he said. The audience cheered.”
As one of classical music’s influential personalities, Stokowski’s global career included a long stint as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra that began in 1912, founder of the American Symphony Orchestra and he gave over one thousand world and US premieres as modern music enthusiast - in addition to a vast repertoire that featured works like Cowell’s Concerto for Koto and Orchestra and Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring.
In describing Stokowski’s onstage conducting style sans baton Shear says, “But his eyes, more than his hands, implored the musicians to give him what he wanted…Stokowski was both a dictator and a liberator. He imposed iron discipline on his players but offered them great freedom of expression.” I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms is a retrospect of her time spent mostly with Stokowski and his circle, with some sidetracking about Rostropovich and an erudite British music professor she met while a student at Temple University. The book’s intriguing photos showcase her significant others. “Several of my friends were getting married, but it wasn’t something I wanted…Instead, I continued to dream of an independent, adventurous life. I wanted only to be with Stokowski and Slava – and hear their music – as much as possible.”