 Typical of Meyerbeer 's innovative orchestration is the use in Robert le diable of dark @-@ toned instruments – bassoons , timpani and low brass , including ophicleide – to characterise the diabolical nature of Bertram and his associates . At one point the arrival of a character is announced by a combination of three solo timpani and pizzicato double @-@ basses . Similar adventurousness is shown in Les Huguenots where the composer uses a solo bass clarinet and solo viola d 'amore to accompany arias . For Le prophète , Meyerbeer considered using the newly invented saxophone . Becker suggests that Meyerbeer in all his grand operas often ' created a deliberately ' unbeautiful ' sound ..... with unusual orchestration designed to express ... content rather than produce a sensuous sound ' and opines that this explains much of the criticism he received from German writers on music . 
