Narrator Thomas Quasthoff's voice has a musicality perfectly suited to this rich alphabet book with its own symphonic score. This is a poetic tribute to the orchestra—from the titular oboe, offering its musical “A” at each symphony’s beginning, to musical notation, the conductor, the instruments, and the audience. In concert with the authors' passages, Quasthoff's German-accented baritone moves through alliterative phrases, describing singing piccolos, mournful English horns, and trilling woodwinds. Each letter has its own music accompanying Quasthoff’s narration and as a stand-alone piece of representative music. There is simply no better way to experience this book than to hear it. An educational and emotive homage to the orchestra.