Support for Classical Music

[OzGav]

It is possible to create a Classical Music specific view but we are interested in how many MA users want this functionality so if you do then upvote this post!

Today, classical metadata gets squashed into the same flat "artists" list as everything else, there's no concept of a Work (the composition itself, separate from a particular recording), and you can't browse or search by composer. This proposal aims to fix that.

Please tell us if you need something this proposal doesn't cover. Easier to hear about it now than after we've shipped half of it.

What metadata could we capture

For every track and album, where the source provides it: (These are the tags as supported by MusicBrainz)

• Composer — as a proper artist, with their own MusicBrainz ID, sort name, biography, etc. (not just a string)
• Conductor
• Orchestra / ensemble / choir — as proper artists too
• Soloists with instruments — e.g. Itzhak Perlman (violin), Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano)
• Lyricist / librettist — for opera, oratorio, lieder
• Arranger — for transcriptions and orchestrations
• Work — the composition itself, e.g. Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 — with catalog numbers (Op., BWV, K., …) and work type (symphony, concerto, sonata, opera, …)
• Movement number, name, and total — so the four movements of a symphony are linked into one Work

Where it would come from

1. Your local files — standard tags that MusicBrainz Picard writes by default (COMPOSER, CONDUCTOR, PERFORMER, WORK, MOVEMENTNAME, etc.).
2. Streaming providers — Apple Music, Qobuz, Subsonic-compatible servers, and others where the API exposes the info.
3. MusicBrainz enrichment — to fill gaps (e.g. conductor identity for files that only have a name string).

What this could enable in the frontend

• Browse by composer. A first-class index, not a search trick.
• Browse by work. "All my recordings of Beethoven's 5th" in one place.
• Filter searches by classical-specific tags. Type a query, then narrow by composer / conductor / orchestra / instrument / work — how the global search with narrowing pattern currently works, but adapted for classical.
• Full credits visible on every track. Composer, conductor, orchestra, every soloist with their instrument — not just a flat artist list.
• Play a complete work. All movements, in order, gapless playback, no shuffle within the work by default.
• Multi-movement tracks grouped visually so movements appear under their parent Work rather than as four sibling tracks.

Exactly how this will be done is yet to be nutted out but probably a combination of extra info in existing views (eg. composer/ conductor/ soloists) and Multi-movement tracks grouped visually on the existing album page. Then maybe a dedicated Classical view where you could browse by composer, browse by work, and/or filter searches by classical tags.

Possible example UI

Tell us

• Is there a way you consume classical music that the above doesn't cover?
• Are there fields you tag in your library today that we haven't listed?
• Is there a streaming service whose classical metadata you'd particularly want supported?
• Is there a browse or playback behaviour you'd want that isn't mentioned?

[halintexas]

Looks like a good plan.
I will appreciate for my classical music CD's.
I am very new to HA so I can't help just yet.

[kzarmer]

I like the idea that classical music could be viewed by composer or by entire pieces especially. I have classical music from CD's structured under one folder locally and other music structured under a different folder locally. It would be nice to easily hide one or the other and create random playlists. I am so new. I forgive me if I am just unaware of how to do this.

[gcoupe]

Related to this would be better support for box sets, which are common in the classical music genre. The labels tend to re-release classical recordings in box sets. You'll find it a challenge, though - some box sets comprise over 100 CDs, and navigating those is not going to be easy.

[OzGav]

This comes down a bit to tagging. The "per disc" view would be the existing album view. The classical view is agnostic to where the work comes from it just groups the works according to the metadata.

[gcoupe]

Agreed, but when it comes to browsing albums, the album browser should (IMO) just display a single item representing the box set. On selecting that, I would want to see the contents, ideally as a list of the individual CDs, and further drilling down to a CD displaying the tracks. But as I say, this is a challenge. You might want to take a look at Roon to see how slicing and dicing of a large collection can be done. Even they have found box sets to be a challenge.

[OzGav]

The standard album view provides the full list of tracks separated by disc. If you are saying it is a box of individually different CDs then I don’t believe the metadata system supports such a 3 level hierarchy.

[gcoupe]

Quite, but that's why it's a challenge. I don't want to see n+ discs in the Album view - I want to see one icon for the box set, which when I click on it takes me to a view where I can see the albums in the set. Good luck.

[gcoupe]

Your example UI showing Beethoven's 5th Symphony seems to be missing an easy way of navigating/selecting between the 838 recordings that currently exist of the work. You need to have a Filter and/or a Focus function for lists of items such as recordings.

[OzGav]

Yeah if we ever get the green light to implement this we will need more input on these sorts of details.

[MelHarbour]

Lending some support to this - I think it's an area that could really mark MA out from the crowd, since most streaming services are primarily interested in 'modern' music, and certainly it's more likely I think that classical music enthusiasts might have the same piece (composer etc) played by multiple 'artists' and want to be able to pick the one they want.

One thing I have is that I'm rarely specifically picking the orchestra - much more likely to cross reference composer and conductor - for orchestral works. But for (say) string quartets, I would be picking the composers/piece cross referenced with the ensemble.

There's also the case of conductor/composer/orchestra having recorded a piece multiple times. For example Karajan Beethoven cycles in (IIRC) 1963 and 1978.

[OzGav]

Thanks Mel. Would have to give this some more thought. Maybe a filter and then search?

[MelHarbour]

Yeah, I mean, it's probably not that hard to search for the right thing in some ways, but just a point of display as much as anything?

[OzGav]

Just to show what I had in mind, your wish list is basically what the design's built around. For your three cases:

Composer × conductor: the cross-reference is initiated from the performer side. From Karajan's page → his works → click Beethoven 5, it auto-filters to just his recordings, with a SHOW ALL toggle to compare against others. Starting from Beethoven's composer page → click Beethoven 5 gives you all recordings (no implicit filter). So "Karajan's Beethoven 5" → start from Karajan; "all interpretations of Beethoven 5 to compare" → start from Beethoven. Both land on the same Work page, just with different default scopes.

Composer × ensemble: orchestras and chamber groups (quartets, choirs, etc.) are deliberately separate filter axes, so chamber browsing picks by ensemble (Emerson, Takács…) without scrolling past every orchestra, and vice versa.

Multiple recordings by the same conductor (Karajan 1963 vs 1977): both appear as separate entries under the work, labelled by original recording year — so a 1963 Karajan from a 2010 reissue still shows 1963, distinct from his 1977 cycle.

Mockups:

[MelHarbour]

Something like that looks like a good start, I think. I'm not a UX expert myself, but in my day job I tend to be an advocate for not letting great be the enemy of good. I think it would be worth pushing forwards.

[MelHarbour]

I think it's also true that there are very few 'good' examples out there to try and be inspired by. I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be interested, but it's not the sort of mass market thing that the big streaming providers care about.

[nilsreiter]

Ha, came here to suggest something like this -- definitely am in favor of this idea.

An entity type Work would have one other use though: To keep track of cover versions of non-classical pieces. Not sure how popular this is, but streaming services offer playlists collecting interesting cover versions, there seems to be some interest in that.

[OzGav]

Make sure to upvote this post!