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Comment by heikkilevanto | Hacker News Reader

Cataloguing classical music has always been a headache, even for experienced librarians. There are multiple recordings, some conductors record the same piece multiple times, with same or different orchestras and soloists, arrangements for different instruments (maybe in a different key), parts of a piece known under alternative names (Bach's Air for a G-string is just one movement from his orchestral suite, and he never called it that anyway). Old composers often borrowed bits or rearranged whole pieces (Mozart did his version of Handel's Messiah), and various historical ways to name and number pieces (concerto #1 in B from opus 6).

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Tangentially, name eliding is also quite difficult for classical pieces, as there are so many parts that eliding is almost always needed, but no standard order, so it's impossible to know which segment is the most informational. There's the composer's name, the piece's name, the opus number, the piece's alias, the movement's number, the movement's name, the performer, and sometimes, the transcriber's name if it is transcribed.

Elide the end, and you might get:

- Sonata No.[...].mp3

Elide the beginning, and you might get:

- [...] by Julia Fischer.mp3

Elide the middle, and:

- Anne-Soph[...]minor.mp3

I really hope that music apps would provide a choice for multi-lined, non-elided presentation of piece titles.

The problem would be not much worse than with popular music where you try to stuff artist+album+track into just the filename.

The difference is that pop music don't need to be titled with as many parts as a typical classical piece. Artist + title is enough as an identifier. In most cases, Artist is a single name (of a singer or a band), and title is usually succinct---not always, but usually. At most, there's an parenthesized .feat or .cover.

I have several bands who do release the same song several times. EG live albums, some do new versions and now without the limitation of record or CD length multiple takes of the same song in the same album

You have pointed to a source of enormous frustration and one which suggests the developers haven’t attempted to understand features of music that existed and evolved for 500 years of Western music and exist still today.

The elision itself is a problem; but so is the solution that involves horizontal scrolling of the information. It usually proceeds in _n_ character blocks and there’s a nearly zero chance the user will have the patience for the eventual completed reveal. Which movement of the sonata is this? I’m not waiting for the scrolling marquee. Table views are where the elision problem really surfaces.

Most music apps I know will display the metadata tags and ignore any filename if metadata is present which would make the problem you described a little different (namely, how to display what is in the metadata).

PREACH. Spotify is a nightmare, at least sane music players would implement some kind of auto scroll through the name...

From my own personal curation I just rely on memory essentially...

I've wanted to 'get into' classical but this had made it difficult. I just settle with whatever the local station plays and forget the name thereafter.

Something I do love about classical recordings is how differently some conductors and orchestras might interpret a specific piece. An example: The third movement of Debussy's Nocturnes (titled "Sirènes") is most often performed with a women's chorus. My favorite recording of this piece was performed with children's choir instead. The difference in vocal quality is marked. The children's pure vocal tone feels far more eerie and siren-esque than the harsher vibrato and warble of a female chorus. Ironically, I have no idea who conducted/recorded this version of the piece.

Do you have a link so I can listen to it?

I recommend this to everyone will listen: Christian Tetzlaff’s most recent recording of the Bach Sonatas and Partitas for unaccompanied violin. It was from around 2017 or so. Just superb in every way. His interpretations have a real improvisatory character that fits with what we know about Bach’s own performance practice. They are recorded on a modern instrument but his articulations sound like Baroque equipment.

Covers or re-recordings in pop music often sound completely different from the original too, of course...

Do get into classical music. As others have noted, yes interpretations can vary, but don’t worry about that initially. It’s relatively subtle. All you need to keep track of ultimately, initially, is the name of the piece and the composer.

If you want to send me an email I'd love to give you some starter suggestions for becoming a listener.

Decent starting place: Osmo Vanska. Recently retired conductor of the Minnesota Symphony, they recorded all of the Beethoven symphonies and most of Mahler’s, they’re excellent and easily found on streaming platforms.

Some good contemporary soloists: Alexandre Tharaud, Stephen Hough, Peter Hill, Jenny Lin, Isabelle Faust.

Thanks!

If you want to go down the rabbit whole a little further, the classical music writer/blogger Charles Downey has been doing annual “best of” lists of classical recordings since 2004. I like these lists in particular because for the most part they’re new recordings and help me find active performers who tour that I might want to see live. https://ionarts.blogspot.com/search/label/Best%20of%20the%20...

Check out Building A Library (and related programmes) on the BBC's wonderful classical station Radio 3:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006tmtz/clips

Record Review:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02nrtty/episodes/player

More to explore here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3cjHdZlXwL7W41XGB7...

This is a fantastic recommendation.

I'm pretty sure I discovered Carlos Kleiber through Building a Library. Listening to his Beethoven Symphonies was like almost listening to different music, especially when comparing against say Karajan...

If you have Spotify premium give https://getconcertmaster.com/ a try. It's a frontend for Spotify with additional cataloging features for classical recordings.

There are also multiple issuings of the same recording, sometimes from multiple remasters, or from different new labels for historic recordings (like Furtwanger’s pre-1945 recordings). Often those have significant differences due to different types or generations of noise-reduction techniques used.

Yes, and the other problem with classical music is that if you split your movements into separate files hardly any reasonable music player for iOS will keep them together in order.

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