“These great works he did as no one ever did and probably no one ever will. But of orchestral music he wrote no more after the _Ninth Symphony_. Music will advance in richness, scope and difficulty; but such music as Beethoven’s great instrumental works, in which thought, emotion, melody and romance combine with extraordinary judgment and common sense and a truly wonderful industry to make a perfect whole, can hardly any more be written. The time for such an event, such a concurrence of the man and the circumstances will not again arrive. There can never be a second Beethoven, or a second Shakespeare. However much Orchestras may improve and execution increase, Beethoven’s _Symphonies_ will always remain at the head of music as Shakespeare’s plays are at the head of the literature of the modern world—‘Age cannot wither them, nor custom stale their infinite variety.’”[68] In every way possible Beethoven discovered and brought forward the capacities of each individual instrument. Each instrument in the Orchestra was enriched under Beethoven’s touch and given a new standing, a new dignity. The viola, the violoncello, the double-bass, the horn, the trombone and the kettledrum were all brought forward and turned into solo instruments. The clarinet, too, became firmly established as a leading voice. No composer before him had ever _made the instruments converse_ as did Beethoven. No composer had ever made the strings so flexible, so humorous, so pathetic, so gay, so languorous. Besides, Beethoven was the first to take the violins up into the highest register—into the ethereal domain where Wagner followed. “When an idea comes to me,” said Beethoven, “I hear it on an instrument, never on a voice.”