Rodolphe Kreutzer
Rodolphe Kreutzer ( * November 16, 1766 in Versailles, † January 6, 1831 in Geneva) was a French violinist, conductor and composer.
Life
He received his first music lessons from his father, and later he studied with Anton Stamitz. At age 16, he was appointed first violinist in the Royal Chapel. Then he got the job as a solo violinist at the Théâtre Italy, which induced him to compose an opera. In 1797 he visited Italy and Germany while on tour and was subsequently professor of violin at the Paris Conservatoire. He also worked since 1801 as Soloviolonist at the Grand Opera, and in the private chapel of Napoleon I. In the next thirty years saw forty operas written by him, whose performances he also directed. Since 1816 he was royal Kapellmeister and in 1817 he was appointed director of the Paris Opera, which he was director 1824-1826.
Since the establishment of the Paris Conservatoire in 1795 he was Professor of Violin up in 1826. Having Ludwig van Beethoven had heard him in 1803 in Vienna, this dedicated his Violin Sonata No. 9 op .47, the famous Kreutzer Sonata, which, however, he never played in public because he thought the Sonata would be a single ordeal for the instrument.
With his colleague Pierre Rode and Pierre Baillot, he developed the Violin method of the Conservatory. The trio can be described as the founder of the French violin school. Kreutzer died in 1831 in Geneva.
He was brother of the violinist and composer Jean Nicolas Auguste Kreutzer (1778-1832) and an uncle of the composer Léon Charles Francois Kreutzer ( 1817-1868 ).