Britten’s Orchestra – Michael Stern, Kansas City (2009, RR-SACD)

The works on Britten’s Orchestra album are some of Benjamin Britten’s most prized works because of his unique signature: his virtuoso and very distinctive musical arrangement. Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony have recorded these works in high-definition sound, which provides remarkable details and ideal stereo separation of the instruments, but also puts the music in a rather dry and compressed-sounding ambience. A result of this kind of hyper-refined digital technology is that every note is heard quite clearly, but the space surrounding it feels airless, unless it is played at a fairly high volume