So the problem has something to do with the Sort By->(Default). This creates the apparent sort order:
Album Artist (auto)
Album
Disk #
Track #
If I disable Sort By->(Default), by assigning a Sort order in exactly the same fashion, all is good.
Now, if I remove Disc # and Track # from the sort order, leaving Album Artist (auto) and Album, then, track 8 immediately sorts to the top of the list, followed by 9 through 12, and then 1 through 7.
So, let's see if (Default) sort order is picking up from the parent Audio view. I force the Audio tree sort order to be that listed above. Then go back the view I was using and set Sort By->(Default), and now all works.
It appears that setting (Default) as the sort order for Audio does not propagate the sort order settings as listed above (you and I had a discussion some time ago about default sort order and its discovery) into children. But again, if I change the Audio sort order to something specific, those settings propagate.
Most unfortunate is that the order listed, as specified by the sort column indicators is not honored when a Play is attempted.
Any thoughts?