What is the best-known work of composer Rodolphe Kreutzer (1766-1831)?

The Kreutzer sonata

OK, so he had Beethoven ghostwrite it for him and he himself declared it too difficult to play, but what the heck !

Didn't know the man himself wrote anything of interest. There's a quintet by him available on Hyperion and he was a teacher who wrote some teaching aid in the form of studies but otherwise what is there?

It's something best known to 20th-Century audiences, though usually not attributed to him.

Further hint: It's one of his violin études.

OK, it was known mainly to American audiences of the radio era or early television era. The etude was famous mainly for its opening bars. Note: This is targeted mainly for baby-boomers and older -- the AARP and colonoscopy crowd What, like there's nobody that old on AnswerPool?

I'll end the nail-biting suspense: It was Jack Benny's theme song.

According to ClassicThemes.com:

quote:

"Study No. 2" from "Forty-Two Studies or Caprices for the Violin", aka: "The Kreutzer Etude", a violin practice study for students, one of the simplest exercises, which is often played badly in connection with Jack Benny.

Benny had a running gag with playing the piece on his violin, but we never get to hear more than a few bars of it.

quote:

The TV shows have some different themes, too, often beginning with one of the Kreutzer exercises for violin (a series of eight notes, repeated--Mel Blanc as Jack's violin teacher occasionally puts lyrics to them in certain episodes: "Press more lightly with the finger, shoot me now, don't let me linger..."

The song "Love In Bloom", usually given as the official theme song, had an intro based on the Kreutzer piece that gave way to a different melody. The song is credited to Leo Robin and Ralph Rainger (who also wrote Bob Hope's theme song, "Thanks For The Memories"), but they should have given a nod to old Kreutzer, too.

Though come to think of it, that 8-note sequence quoted above might have been simply: C-E-G-F-E-F-D-E and repeat, with all notes of equal duration in the key of C within the same C to G interval -- much different from the commonly played intro to 'Love in Bloom'.