Nancy Shear’s memoir I Knew a Man Who Knew Brahms is a veritable three-part fugue, blending as it does personal memoir with portraits of two larger-than-life musicians who couldn’t be more different from each other: conductor Leopold Stokowski and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. The result is not just a different perspective on the world of orchestral music, but an example of how art can shape identity while providing sanctuary from life’s woes.

Indeed, that latter aspect of the book provides the emotional underpinning for everything. Shear explores music as “a profound conduit for human emotion, connection, and personal growth” as she chronicles her own evolution from starstruck teenager to mature artist and writer while acknowledging it required her to “recall tragedies as well as triumphs and relive painful losses” and “release” family secrets.

Shear’s journey begins in adolescence, when music became her refuge from a chaotic home life where, as soon as “father’s car pulled into the driveway, we’d have to switch off the music, and by the time his keys jangled in the door lock, the house would be hushed and filled with tension.”

At 18, Shear became Stokowski’s musical assistant, and during a long...