Some significant composers used serpents in their works. Handel wrote for it in Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749), Beethoven scored for the serpent in Military March (1816) and Wagner also wrote for it in Rienzi (1842). However it is well documented that the serpent was a very difficult instrument to play, largely because the finger holes are so widely spaced. Charles Burney, a nineteenth century music historian likened the sound of the serpent to that of a 'hungry or rather angry essex calf'! Few serpents were made after 1835, they eventually gave way to the more refined ophicleide.