Remembering William Khoury, 1914-1973.
THS Orchestra Director 1961-1962

by Otto Steinmayer.

Bill Khoury was a great musician, a violinist and conductor, and a great teacher. He died twenty years ago this month, I cannot remember whether on the 3rd or 5th; I was seventeen at the time. Mr. Khoury’s (never in his life did I get to call him “Bill”) death hit me hard, for he was the first man I had in my adolescence come to love and honor because of his own merits and warmth. It was bitter to part after knowing him only four years. At 17 this misfortune plunged me into a lot of gloomy thoughts. But this is no place for gloom. Bill was a cheerful man. He left me memories of laughter, wisdom, and joy.

Bill Khoury was the first person who ever taught me anything who actually wanted me to learn. I was burning with desire to play the violin, and Bill took that desire seriously. His concern surprised and gratified me, because I had never met that intense care before in an adult. I felt flattered that Bill thought I could actually learn to play well. Bill also knew that I wanted art, not the “Tune-a-Day” stuff I had been dished out up to then, and he gently taught me what real music was.

After 20 years my memories are vivid but without order and incomplete; I don’t claim to know all about him. I esteemed him as a whole person, although I rarely saw him except for lessons. Maybe some of his friends will write down facts about his life that I cannot find out at this distance. I’ll write down as much as I know.

William Khoury was born in Torrington in 1914 of Lebanese parents. Many of his relatives still live and thrive in Torrington. He had a feel in his blood for those two noblest gifts of Mediterranean people to humanity, music and food. He relished good cooking and was a good cook himself, not a common accomplishment. He introduced me to a special grating cheese whose taste still lingers.

I think Bill’s father ran a grocery store. While young, Bill showed great talent for the violin, and after much sacrifice studied with such famous teachers as Emil Herrman and Harold Berkley. One day in the library I traced my “ancestry” as Bill’s student, through his teachers, and his teachers’ teachers, as far back as Groves Dictionary went. It turned out that Bill was in a direct line of descent teacher to teacher from all the great violinists back to Corelli and Vivaldi. Maybe it will surprise some people to know that Torrington had such an illustrious son. I felt great pride that this corner of Connecticut should be home to such a person. But many of the best musicians and composers of Europe came from humble backgrounds and small towns. It seemed perfectly natural to find Bill in his home town.

Bill Khoury lived up to his illustrious ancestry. He could play up to the level of any New York violinist, and he knew many of the greats. But he also cared for doing something in his local sphere. He once said that “everything worth doing was worth doing badly.” meaning, of course, not that shoddiness was excusable, but that all persons with their hearts in a thing should try their best at what they love, and not be discouraged because the competition is so stiff. He encouraged a lot of us, and made us feel that excellence is open to anybody who wants it enough.

He lived, breathed, ate and drank music. After one lesson at his house he offered me a cup of coffee. There was no milk in the fridge. “Do you want some Cremona?” he said, with a twinkle in his eye, pointing to the jar of “Cremora” creamer. “Cremona” is the town where Stradivari worked. He pointed out with humor the eighth note he’d set into the tiles of his shower stall.

In appearance Bill was shorter than the average, solid, with black eyes, a wise and ironic smile, and thick pepper-and-salt eyebrows that brushed up like feathers. He resembled a sage, and could pierce right through you with a look. He sometimes played at being simple, but he knew what his students were thinking better than they did. His character combined both earthiness and sophistication. At one lesson, demonstrating how to play a passage, he flubbed a note and grumbled “Sh-t!” He smiled, only slightly embarrassed, and said to me, “A great artist should sometimes swear when he makes a mistake.”

He enjoyed horrible little cigars. Once I saw him playing and smoking at the same time, dribbling ash over the top of his priceless and beloved Guadagnini. It made me wince but no harm resulted. I still have a photograph of that fiddle, but I regret that I never recorded his playing.

He had perhaps too quick and sensitive a mind to have made a successful career, because a musician’s life is hard and requires much callousness. He told me that he had mentioned to his doctor how many tranquilizers he took to calm himself before his last solo performance in New York. The doctor was astonished: “That would have knocked out a horse!”

Bill had a heart condition, angina pectoris (from which Vivaldi also suffered). He took care of himself, carried around his nitroglycerin, and had the best reasons in the world to seek quiet satisfaction and avoid the tensions of life in the city or on the road. He eked out a living teaching fiddle and directing local music. He founded and conducted the Torrington Civic Symphony, where many of us got our first chance to play real music.

I knew Bill best as a teacher. He taught me the meaning of hard work. I have always remembered his comment on the scales and exercises I found so boring. If you want to be good, he said, you “have to sweat blood over these études!” That proved to be perfectly true, not only in violin-playing, but in everything I’ve ever done in life. Some of his teaching methods, his relaxed but insistent approach, his respect for the student, have become my teaching tools too.

Bill’s taste in music was refined and absolutely rigorous. He reminded me of Paganini, who played Beethoven late quartets in private with his friends. During the last year I studied with him, I became enthusiastic to play baroque violin, that is, violin played according to the style of 300 years ago. Bill listened to one of my idols, an Austrian fellow who has now disappeared from the scene. Bill was scornful. “That guy plays the fiddle as if he were chewing gum!” he said. It took some time for me to understand that judgment, but, as usual, he was right.

Bill was not bigoted against any music or any style. He had no preference for any school or “technique.” “Play the violin with your nose,” he said. “or anything, as long as it sounds good.” He knew little about baroque violin, but he was sympathetic and curious. Few professional musicians, I know now, possess the intellectual interest and emotional attachment to their art that Bill had; few possess his flexibility. He knew when music was solid and admired it when it met it; he had no time for flashy trash. He preferred to touch the heart than to dazzle the ear.

Bill introduced me to Frederick Haenel and helped me get my first good violin. He got me to play my first solo in school chapel, he prepared me for playing a concerto, and he gave me courage to stand up in public when I was as frightened of an audience as of, say, the Viet Cong. I believe he had a good opinion of me as a budding musician, not a virtuoso in the rough but a man who would practice and honor music all his life. Now I have gone far along the road he started me on, and I think his spirit is as proud of me as if I had turned out another Itzhak Perlman.

After living many years in Malaysia I have seen the utter respect and acceptance Asian students give their teachers. My memories of Bill come from a time when I needed a teacher and found one in him, one who deserved the name. I still think of Bill as I did at seventeen, in that Asian way of complete respect, and I feel these words are inadequate to express my debt and affection. I write what I can in order to keep his memory and his honor fresh.

I’d like to leave you with a reminiscence by David Sermersheim, chairman of the music department at the Hotchkiss School, who brought Bill to teach me so long ago, so that you can see how Bill inspired respect and affection also in his colleagues.

“Remembering Bill Khoury is like remembering the last comfortable shoes I wore or the sweater that goes on first. I remember a human being in love with music, but mostly a man who loved music but didn’t take himself seriously. He was always ready with an anecdote that would set the course of the day, if you were fortunate to see him first thing. I miss him because he gave me confidence and allowed young composers and arrangers to use his players to hear what we had written, even though it gave him additional problems with his personnel. He encouraged everyone who ever touched an instrument. He could have had a most satisfying and active career as a performer if he had chosen to do so. He loved violins like his own children. Anyone who worked with him was a friend. The best part of the symphony (!) rehearsals were the pizza feeds afterwards. I’ve missed him for twenty years, and I knew him for a short period of time. I’ve never forgotten him. I miss, most of all, the refreshing, professional congeniality that he brought to everything he did.”