Read online just now:

It took a while to pluck up the courage to listen to a CD devoted to music for solo cor anglais – the alto version of the oboe.

Okay … it really just takes courage to deal with the reeds. Playing it isn’t so frightening. 🙂

I can maybe understand what the writer is (perhaps) suggesting: listening to one instrument for a full CD can sometimes get a bit boring. It’s not really courage one might need, but stamina. I remember when someone I know was at Banff for a summer and she told me their was some oboe convention or some such thing (maybe it was the IDRS? Has it been in Banff?). She said after a while she really craved hearing something different! Ah well … I guess it was just too much of a good (great?!) thing.