Glyndebourne's first The Turn of the Screw divided opinion. At some points the staging delved deeper into the opera’s subconscious than we have gone before – the scene where Peter Quint tended to Miles in the bath could have been lifted out of Humphrey Carpenter’s controversial biography of the composer – but the absence of any sense of claustrophobia told against it. Surprisingly, perhaps, that same trade-off is also present in this purely audio recording, made at the 2007 festival.

Outstanding is Edward Gardner and his team of soloists from the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Everything is brilliantly executed – the pacing taut, the feeling for Britten’s sound world instinctive and the instrumental playing well-nigh unsurpassed. Like the production, Gardner peers fearlessly below the score’s surface: listen to the malevolent kaleidoscope of sounds as Quint lures Miles into the garden at night (the bathroom scene at Glyndebourne) and the glacial strings when Mrs Grose recounts Quint’s death on the icy road.

The production’s downside was that its restless use of the stage revolve often placed singers at a distance. Even more than in Glyndebourne’s recording of Peter Grimes (1/11), this results in a less than ideal balance and many words are lost. Camilla Tilling gets right under the skin of the Governess, laying bare the nerve-endings of her insecurity. But how much more immediate Britten’s Jennifer Vyvyan is, caught so close to the microphone in her encounter with Miss Jessel that we can almost feel her goosebumps. Anne-Marie Owens is a strong, maternal Mrs Grose; Christopher Sladdin’s Miles and Joanna Songi’s Flora, both excellent. As Quint and Miss Jessel, William Burden and Emma Bell put flesh on the ghostly couple, with Burden hitting a conversational tone in the Prologue. Not a replacement for Britten’s own recording but an often chilling, intense, live alternative.