30 November 2009

Classical Music in the MP3 Age

How are aficionados expected to organize classical music in iTunes? The whole artist-album schema seems grossly inadequate for dealing with composer, conductor, orchestra, quartet, soloist, etc.

What I've been doing is putting the composer in the artist field (last name first), the name of the work in the album field, and the other rubbish in the comments section. Because when I listen to Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra, it's Bartok I'm listening to, not Leonard Bernstein. The drawback here is if there is more than one version of the same work in my library. I have two versions of Mahler's Second Symphony so I'm forced to come up with differentiating album titles. Not ideal but it'll have to do until something better comes along.


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