This is way off topic (and I apologize) but it’s remarkably hard to learn about classical music. Would you do me a favour? I’m a classical neophyte and struggle with composer/orchestra/conductor fit. Can you recommend any combinations that I need to hear??

Thus far, I think I like baroque and Bach makes me happy. I’m starting to think I love opera but I might just have a thing for Maria Callas. However, I’m open to any and all recommendations and will love the hell out of anyone who recommends anything. I prefer vinyl but I’ll buy an 8 track if it helps.

(Whenever I’ve asked HN for help, I’ve ended up with new favourite recordings of all time. Thanks to all the classical music lovers who have really enhanced my life throughout the years.)

> I’m a classical neophyte and struggle with composer/orchestra/conductor fit.

If you're new to classical music you really don't need to worry about this. Almost all available professional recordings are of high quality, and the differences between interpretations are relatively subtle.

What is important is to get a sense of which composers you enjoy. Classical music spans a large period of time with very different styles, so try a few well-known composers from different time periods to see what you like. I greatly enjoy classical music and I regularly attend(ed) concerts, but my interests are very narrow and I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of Mozart and Beethoven for instance.

In my opinion, classical music is best enjoyed when you devote your full attention to listening to the music, i.e. when you're not doing anything else (or something with a very low cognitive load, like walking/driving/etc). Focus on how the music makes you feel, but it's okay to let your thoughts wander off a bit.

I kind of disagree with this. For the post-Beethoven era, sure, but the standard way of playing Beethoven and before tends to be heavily biased towards an uninformed modern idea of what classical music "should" be, which is stodgy, slow, smooth, heavily refined, overcooked with crescendoes and decrescendos, and quite inauthentic. Almost as though it's shameful for music to be immediate and exciting at the risk of being unrefined. If you compare Furtwängler's[1] Beethoven symphonies to Christopher Hogwood's... one sounds like music for wealthy old people at a concert hall. The other sounds like music. (Don't get me started on the routine butchering of Bach...)

But that's just my opinion. The point is it really pays to try different conductors, performers and performances before the 1830s or so. I'm not sure why that time changes things, but I'd guess the romantic style that came after more closely aligns with artsy-fartsy performance practices, and that composers also became more careful about marking how their works should be performed. Anyway, trying different things is also a good exercise in developing personal taste, which is a key ingredient of music appreciation.

[1] I originally had von Karajan here, but I went back to have a listen and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Substituted Furtwängler's inexplicably famous recordings, which sound like the entire orchestra took Valium: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bOxcryX1VE . Compare to Beethoven's recommended tempo and historical style: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y07M8e5g-Y

I wonder if this is a similar effect as the “classic white marble” impression of Greek & Roman architecture - we have an entire aesthetic (both artistic and cultural) built off of the “purity” of the white marble remains; meanwhile it turns out in their time they were garishly colored and decorated because the Greeks and romans, like all other humans, actually enjoyed living in places and looking at things.

It's quite similar. There's definitely a "white marble effect" coming from the original sources, that tend to be a very barebone notation of the music with basically no indications on how to perform it. But we know from written discussions that creative improvisation was key to performance in that era, and regarded as the very peak of music instruction even more so than composition itself! Sometimes we get lucky and have more detailed sources, that tell us how some pieces might have been performed in detail.

That’s a great point.

I wonder if in future there will be slow, dignified recordings of Nicky Minaj et al

Exactly! Furtwängler is just Beethoven chopped and screwed

You can find those all over Spotify already ;) More so if the artist does not have any music on there.

Between the two examples, the historical style feels much more alive, vibrant, dynamic. There's a real energy there.

I went back to the Furtwängler version and it felt like what my mind feels like when my depression kicks in. It's flattened out and lethargic, like it's lost the will to live.

I'm no classical music connoisseur, I rarely listen to it. But the difference is night and day to my untrained ears. One is boring and the other captures my attention.

I went to a performance by the Seattle Symphony back when Gerald Schwartz was conducting and he managed to make Beethoven's 9th symphony sound dull. It was an impressive feat. He explained, for reasons I've forgotten, that he even muted the violins. I went to a second performance a few years later by the same conductor, and it was equally devoid of spirit. It was enervated by far more than just the plodding tempo.

On the other hand, John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique plays Beethoven on period instruments at the tempo the composer indicated, and it's absolutely gripping.

I was with you up until you mentioned Christoper Hogwood. Not that there's anything wrong with him just that that wouldn't be the first name to pop up in my head when I think music vs 'stodgy music for wealthy old people'. It makes me think what you're trying to say in so many words is that you prefer music played on period instruments using something close to the orchestra that would have been available to the composer in their own time. That would limit you to music from sometime before the mid 1800's since composers since then pretty much have had the modern orchestra we have today so 'period' orchestras would be anachronistic and not what the composer intended. If you like period orchestras you should check out recordings of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco. They also play 'Hogwood' style on authentic period instruments.

I have [this CD](https://www.allmusic.com/album/vivaldi-the-four-seasons-conc...) from 1990 of Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons. I have never heard a version of the Four Seasons that was so vibrant. Unfortunately I've never been able to find the exact recording on a streaming service, but I cherish that album.

As someone who doesn't listen to classical music, I'd say I prefer Furtwängler's recording to your other link. It sounds more epic, like an action movie, while the other one sounds more like the backdrop to some village festival. But I was surprised for sure how different the two sounded, and that's not something I had ever really considered before, so thanks for showing me this.

I totally agree with this. I used to listen to a lot of classical music (radio, vinyl, in concert). There seems to be something about the mid-20th century conductors where all their recordings are slow, ponderous and somnolent. Beethoven in particular, but many other composers get the same treatment. Hogwood's recordings are great. IMHO the best recording of Beethoven's 9th that I've heard is Leonard Bernstein's.

How is Bach routinely butchered, and do you have recommended recordings of Bach's keyboard works (let's say WTC and the inventions/sinfonias)?

Maybe try Nikolayeva's recordings?

WTC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNpwAZf6thY

Inventions and sinfonias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bL7oyuqEwA

Lots of people recommend Gould in this thread. Check out the difference of the first invention in the link above with the first invention of Gould, and see what you prefer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQot-jM6FSw

I don't have an opinion about whether anyone has butchered Bach or not, but, after listening to a half-dozen interpretations of the WTC (all on piano), I find that I like Zhu Xiao-Mei's the best.

Harpsichord parts played on piano...

Glenn Gould was unsurpassed.

It's indisputable that he was a virtuoso on the keyboard, but unfortunately he accompanied that with annoying humming that many recordings pick up way too much of.

I agree with this answer. I listen to classical constantly but still don't really feel like I understand it well.

What I did was just listen..listen..listen and then look for patterns in what I liked.

I love Vivaldi and Bach, but I tend not to love too many of the other "big names". Turns out I really love most anything from the Baroque period! And I literally just used that Wikipedia entry as a starting part to continue looking for more composers.

If you like Baroque keyboard music, try something like Scarlatti. It's a bit difficult finding good interpretations (I have a CD somewhere), but here's an example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTi-QXenilQ

Rameau is a different kind of beast from Bach:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbIGcj_Avb8 https://youtu.be/NK3-URQntcg?t=1383

I also really recommend giving Bach's cello suites a try:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGgG-0lOJjk

> If you're new to classical music you really don't need to worry about this. Almost all available professional recordings are of high quality, and the differences between interpretations are relatively subtle.

Agreed, but it's also important to understand that what's truly distinctive about Western classical music (as opposed to other music traditions) is it being a written art form first and foremost, with sheet music as the "standard" form for a piece and performance being subsequent to that. If you're "new" to serious/cultivated music, you really should start by learning to read the sheet music and follow along when listening to a performance. Everything else in music appreciation is downstream of that.

>what's truly distinctive about Western classical music (as opposed to other music traditions) is it being a written art form first and foremost

I find this hard to believe, music score can be copied down the generation with some degree of lost-in-translation, they might not be the full materialization of the composer's idea, some copier may write down their own idea on the sheets.

I would agree that music score is the only means of accessing composer's works for Western classical music, and thereby became the "standard". But this would also likely be true for other culture's music, and therefore it's not unique.

Hi, I find this useful https://old.reddit.com/r/classicalresources/

Also, I have used Idagio in the past, which has a mood-based suggester.

Related, I would recommend the book "1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die" [0]. The works are neatly arranged by chronological order, so you can easily discover new works from a period you like. And it gave me plenty of ideas just browsing it.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1214513.1001_Classical_R...

>best enjoyed when you devote your full attention to listening to the music, i.e. when you're not doing anything else

Reminds me of going to live concerts, and my guest being surprised that I spend most of my time with my eyes closed - so that I can focus on the music.

Bach: The Art of Fugue performed by Emerson String Quartet (Deutsche Grammophon)

Classical music rewards close listening, but orchestral pieces can be overwhelming to those who haven't trained themselves to listen closely. This is a good set of recordings to start with, as there are only a handful of performers, each with a distinctive sound.

Digression: once one has learned the pieces, this can be a good audio assessment tool. Some speakers over-amplify specific sounds. Some amps muddy certain frequencies or complex sounds. A string quartet performing similar melodies is a great way to notice this.

This specific album was the first that really opened my eyes to audio quality differences. If all four instruments are playing, I should be able to hear them. If all I can hear is the viola, there's something wrong with the system. Or, if I can suddenly hear all four where I couldn't before... These are significant differences, not minor ones.

From there, it was learning finer details. The first time I could hear the attack, sustain, and release of a note on a stringed instrument. Changing equipment and suddenly getting what "soundstage" meant. Etc.

This album also kept me honest when diving into the potentially incredibly expensive and super opinionated audiophile world. How does this compare to my personal system? Am I noticing anything I've not noticed before? Is anything missing? Do the answers to these questions justify spending money? Surprisingly, the answer most of the time to the last question was no.

I love the recording I have of Academy of St Martin in the Fields that has The Art of Fugue and Musical Offering (Philips, 1994). Both works are beautiful explorations of counterpoint. Especially MO if you read the story behind it. And the Crab Canon... Bach blows my mind. TBH I am no audiophile, but I like their performance. Have you heard it?

I have not. I will check it out. Thank you!

IMO you need percussion to really show the capabilities of the speakers or headphones. Cymbals especially sound like mud on bad speakers.

Four musicians is three too many for the Art of Fugue. Just listen to Hewitt or Koroliov or any other solo keyboard.

Others have recommended Mozart's Requiem if you like music with singing. If you haven't heard Robert Levin's completion, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=457pvjOo9Hw, I think it takes the cake.

For a neophyte, I think it's good to start with the war horses, for which there are lots of high-quality modern recordings.

- Bach Brandenberg concerti (I like the Netherlands Bach Society, they have tons of great Bach recordings on Youtube. If you're into Bach, highly recommend you check them out.)

- Goldberg variations (I like Glen Gould's later recording, but Kimiko Ishizaka is also a great libre recording, and Netherlands Bach Society has a great recording on harpsichord)

- Mozart Symphony 40

- Mozart piano, violin sonatas

- Beethoven Symphonies 3,5,9 (I really like https://www.youtube.com/user/hrSinfonieorchester)

- Chopin waltzes, etudes, nocturnes

- Rach piano concerto 2, Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini

- Sibelius violin concerto (I like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0w0t4Qn6LY)

- Bruch violin concerto

Personally I think watching videos helps bring the music alive in a way that listening to recordings doesn't. And maybe it's heresy to some, but I think modern recordings are, in general, a lot more pleasant to listen to.

HTH!

If you like baroque music, I can't help but plug my own New York City-based ensemble (named after Bach himself), the Sebastians: https://www.sebastians.org I'm the group's harpsichordist and director.

We've released a lot of free content on Youtube, especially this year: https://www.youtube.com/thesebastians . Just today I released four recent performances, including Bach's fifth Brandenburg concerto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHr9-Ht2XSI .

Happy listening!

Not the OP but happy to help!

Since you already like Bach, start by exploring his work!

Let's start with the Goldberg Variations, which are 30 variations on a theme set for the keyboard. Glenn Gould's 1955 recording is perhaps the best known recording of this work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwas_7H5KUs

I also greatly enjoy Andras Schiff's interpretations of Bach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbOwhF1hFcg

For opera, I suggest starting with the Magic Flute by Mozart. There are so many good recording to choose from but why not watch the thing? It's meant to be a visual/audio format, after all! I suggest this recording of the Metropolitan Opera - it's what got me hooked on operas many years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjZfHFPIk7g

If you like Maria Callas, you'll love Italian operas. Why not start with the classic, La Traviata? I can't find any of Callas's performances online (aside from clips), but you may like this performance with Anna Netrebko: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYGiRbDHr7k

Finally, a note on where/how to listen to classical music. I find Youtube to be an incredible tool for listening and for discovery. It's not necessary to dig back to vinyl or 8-track to listen to great performances - they've been remastered for CDs and lossless media.

But ultimately you want to listen to it in person. I'll never forget seeing my first opera in person (The Flying Dutchman). Or the time I scored orchestra seats for Sibelius's 4th symphony. Until the performances return, you might want to buy a ticket to an online performance on DG Premium, which is Deutsche Grammophon's streaming service: https://www.dg-premium.com/

Good luck and good listening!

EDIT: Alas, the Magic Flute performance I linked to doesn't have subtitles! Boo! Here's one that does, though it's not the classic Met production: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPxrbeR5ZyE

Personally I find Gould's persistent humming to be very grating (not endearing) and recommend Kimiko Ishizaka over him any day.

If you'd like to explore the BBC Music Magazine's list of 20 greatest conductors might not be a bad place to start for orchestral music. The ordering may be a bit controversial but these are all great artists and the listing has some of their best performances.

https://www.classical-music.com/features/artists/20-greatest...

Some personal favourites:

Brahms 4 - Carlos Kleiber / Vienna Philharmonic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho-H-8FzbU8)

Mahler 2 - Claudio Abbado / Lucerne (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MPuoOj5TIw)

Shostakovich Symphonies - Bernard Haitink / London Philharmonic / Concertgebouw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4dcZ90fN0)

One thing to look out for in baroque is original instruments vs modern instruments performances. Original instruments have a very different - leaner - sound. I find I much prefer them now. Someone like John Eliot Gardiner is amazing in original instruments Bach.

If you like Bach played on authentic instruments, you must know the "All of Bach" recordings

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/about-allofbach

All of Bach is a project of the Netherlands Bach Society. High-quality recordings of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach are made freely available for everyone.

Thank you - that looks awesome. Look forward to exploring.

I second the Mahler recommendation, I haven't heard that particular recording of Mahler 2 but it's one of my favorite symphonies ever and I was worried I was going to get through this thread without even reading Mahler's name.

I'd also add Bruckner to the list (my favorites are 4 and 8, and since I like big brass section then the Chicago Symphony Orchestra recordings with Solti fit me well, although I realize many classical music purists will probably disagree with me there).

Thank you. I'd second Bruckner and the Chicago brass!

The Lucerne Mahler 2 is a great performance - but it's also special for other reasons: Claudio Abbado had previously been Chief Conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic but has diagnosed in 2000 with stomach cancer and had to stand down. After severe surgery he was able to return to conducting (I think for the first time) in Lucerne with an orchestra of musicians that were hand picked by Abbado from the world's greatest orchestras and chamber ensembles. So a hugely emotional event as well as a great performance.

Wow very cool story, will have to check it out!

I love this question so much.

Try listening to string quartets. Here are a few brilliant ones:

All of Schubert: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nK-_o1OYLszr8d...

Shostakovich 8: https://youtu.be/HgExfvXq7VI

Beethoven 10 (Harp): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exMaWKVcCEs

Mendelssohn 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UAU7xbTOyA

There are so many more but string quartets are such a wonderful place to get started. Intimate, pure music, with so much passion and excitement.

The Schubert link demonstrates one of the real bugbears of classical music which is streamed or ripped using the usual online metadata database: "Death and the Maiden" is #46–49, presumably because it was tracks 46 to 49 in the boxed set. In reality, it is a 30 minute piece in 4 parts which is normally performed on its own.

You wouldn't normally listen to just one part ("movement") and rarely to more than a couple of pieces at a time. Classical pieces are usually numbered ("opus", abbreviated "Op.", which is Latin for "work"). Schubert is one of those composers who didn't number them himself. He died young of syphilis and left his manuscripts in a disorganised mess. They were sorted through by a guy called Deutsch, hence the numbers here are "Deutsch" numbers. Here, "Death and the Maiden" is D. 810.

The Italian after the Roman numerals for the movements are speed markings ("allegro" = "fast"), and this piece shows a typical progression: fast, slow, playful/fast, faster. They should be listened to in order, one after the other. The idea is that the music takes you through a sequence of moods, like courses in a dinner.

If you think you might like opera check out the René Jacobs' recordings of Mozart's Italian Operas on the Harmonia Mundi label: Cosi Fan Tutte, Le Nozze di Figaro & Don Giovannni.

In general as a beginner I wouldn't worry too much about finding the best recording of any particular piece. Once you start to develop some favorites then you can pick a few and compare. Streaming services make this a lot easier and cheaper than it used to be.

I don't know if I agree with that. The recording can make the difference between a transcendent piece and dogshit. For example if Beethoven's Fifth is played too fast, especially if there's not enough of a pause between the first two phrases... it just ruins the whole thing.

Hah, that's funny. I grew up with a super fast Karajan (perhaps to make it fit on an LP?), and have had a hard time adjusting to the slower tempo that most recordings have.

Personally, for me all Beethoven symphonies >= 4 are a treat. If you ever get the chance to see one live, go. It's overwhelming.

Youtube can be helpful when it comes to interpretations. With some luck, there's going to be music geeks recommending other versions, so you can click around and find one you prefer.

> If you ever get the chance to see one live, go. It's overwhelming.

This is an important aspect of classical music (like any other music) that's easily missed. Even the finest recordings don't capture anything like the feelings of experiencing a live performance up close. The acoustics, the sense of space, the tension and urgency of mistakes and recoveries (which are barely tolerated in modern professional recordings, as lovely and "perfect" as they try to be).

If you have a chance to get to the symphony, or a string quartet recital, or a polyphonic vocal ensemble in a cathedral, take the opportunity! I guarantee it sounds different, often more vibrant, more real. (Not that this stops me from collecting tons of recordings, which are great too, just a different beast.)

You don't like the 3rd? I'd put the Eroica in my top 10 list of symphonies by anybody.

Honestly I’ve never seen a Karajan that I liked

wouldn't choose his recordings for the beethoven/bach/mozart, but he definitely had his moments

critics argue about his mahler 9th; i think it's amazing

they don't argue about his bruckner 8th and 9th; among his last gigs

and then there's stuff like strauss where he was unparalleled

Yeah that's true but if you stick to the major labels and performers you're very unlikely to hear a performance that bad. IMO worrying too much about this as a beginner is a distraction.

But once you start to develop some favorites then hearing different takes can add a lot of enjoyment I agree.

I agree this is mostly a matter of taste. Consider the endless debates over Heifetz and Argerich’s playing styles.

Do you want to read a really entertaining book?

The Great Pianists, by Harold C. Shonberg

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Pianists-Mozart-Present/dp/0671...

You don't have to worry about reading the whole thing. Read through Bach and Mozart (and maybe Beethoven) to begin with. You'll get a feel for the historical background, and mention of their major pieces. Then, you go listen to the pieces.

I know these are pianists, but a good number of the great composers were some of the foremost pianists of their time.

Supplement a composer you've read about with a YouTube video or two, and their entry in Wikipedia, and you're off to a great start.

Anyway, that's one approach.

You should definitely listen to Bach's mass in B minor and his cantatas if you like vocal work and Bach. Also listen to Mozart's Requiem.

Some other good stuff would be all the symphonies by Mozart and Beethoven. Vivaldi's four seasons.

Also try Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, and Goldberg Variations.

For opera listen to some of the overtures and highlights by Wagner (Tannhauser, Tristan & Isolde, Lohengrin).

Also check out Glenn Gould for Bach!

Concerto #1 in D minor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLi9A0H8H4

I asked a classical-loving friend this same question and she gave me a wonderful Spotify playlist that I can share if you're interested[1]. I also condensed it down to my own favorites if you'd like that as well[2].

[1]: Turns out I'm unable to share her playlist, but...

[2]: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Foxcns6j4SwiWIWiaEtKX?si=...

Ever really loved a classical piano song? No? Maybe you just don't like the controversial new way we've been tuning pianos for the last ~200 years.

Check out the 1/4 comma meantone version of Mozart Fantasie KV397 [1] which you can compare to equal temperament. (Please note this piece was unfinished, and the final section is believed to have been written by someone else.)

My secret love is Chopin Ballade No. 4 Op. 52 in unequal temperament [2]. Last year this video had ~4k views. I may be responsible for 1k and it's now ~8k views. You can compare a good ET version Krystian Zimmerman [3].

Jacob Collier has referred to Equal Temperament as a "hoax" [4]

[1]: https://youtu.be/lzsEdK48CDY?t=701

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJT5Q6HooyA

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe-GrRQz8pk

[4]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwRSS7jeo5s

BBC Radio 3 has a whole series about this called Building a Library. There’s a UK retailer called Presto that annotate their stock with the different endorsements too - they sell digital files as well, if you’re not in the UK. Then it’s really about learning what you like. Personally, I’d start by period: broadly, Baroque (Bach, Vivaldi etc), Classical (Beethoven, Mozart etc), Romantic (Debussy, Ravel). The periods have identifiable styles and can be a good way to introduce yourself to the nuance of the compositions. Finally, there’s a question of instrumentation: whether you prefer orchestral, vocal, chamber, solo etc.

Sounds like a lot of work, but remember it should be fun! It’s new music, a bunch of which you’ve probably never heard before. Have an open mind and dive in!

Also, assuming you have access where you live and the means, live music doesn’t have to be prohibitively expensive. Check out the programs at your local concert halls and go down to hear some music.

Presto is fabulous, CDs, SACDs, mp3s; 30s samples for most of the stock, if you order the CD you get immediate access to the mp3 ...

Not affiliated with them at all, but they were a lifesaver during the lockdown (without Schoenberg to get drunk to, who knows how I would have made it through)

If you have an iPad, Deutsche Grammophon's apps are a great intro to the intellectual and emotional complexity and nuance of some key classical works. They have apps for Beethoven's 9th, Vivaldi's Four Seasons, and Liszt's Sonata.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/beethovens-9th-symphony/id6019...

With Beethoven's 9th, while you are listening it visually syncs the original manuscript and score, a visualization of where in the orchestra different instruments are playing, and includes analysis of the performance and intention of the parts. It also lets you switch between four different performances of the 9th by the Berliner Philharmoniker, so you can compare and contrast interpretations over the years.

Highly recommended!

Seek out any Bach played by Glenn Gould. The incredible thing here is that Bach left sheet music but sheet music of the age did not include time, so the music has to be interpreted. The "Goldberg Variations" are this interpretation by Glenn Gould (a pianist).

I'd throw in Beethoven's 3rd and 5th Symphonies.

I'd also throw in something like Verdi's Rigoletto and Rossini's Barber of Seville.

In my past I owned a record label which specialised in pop, rock and folk music. I had to learn classical like I had to learn jazz. But the thing that made this easier for me was the realisation that there is far far more rock / pop than there is classical or jazz. It can be intimidating but you only need an entry point to get you started. Whatever that is will be personal to you, but the best advice anyone can give is to just listen.

> so the music has to be interpreted

Just to extend this point: My understanding of the topic might be far off as I haven't ever learned music under a teacher. But to me there's great deal of interpretation even with tempi marks that even good students just aren't thinking.

I sometimes enjoy watching masterclasses of players with wealth of experience. Andres Schiff is one of the most famous ones. Also Maxim Vengerov the violinist. Anyone that hasn't seen one masterclass should look up on youtube if that sound remotely interesting.

Besides tempo, at Bach's time, dynamics (loudness) weren't usually written down.

But there's always a lot of interpretation involved, even today. The score is a very rough model of the music, akin to jotted down notes outlining a novel. Or like a manuscript for a film.

I had great success with Robert Greenberg's series on music and music history. I started with How to Listen to and Understand Opera which is available on his site (https://robertgreenbergmusic.com/download/how-to-listen-unde...) and The Great Courses as well. If you want a preview shoot me an email.

He adds lots of fun history to go with it. Bach's Goldberg Variations was his greatest financial success "The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or." and he was obsessed with coffee. Coffee cantana by him as well.

I’ll second his courses. Went through his Listen to and Understand Great Music course on The Great Courses through Audible.

If you like Bach you might want to learn to listen to polyphony: the form of music in which multiple melodies are played simultaneously while forming an harmonious whole. I recommend looking & listening to videos of Stephen Malinowsky (smalin on youtube), particularly his older videos with less visual clutter. Each color is a separate melody. Initially and you should try to focus on just one melody, then see if you can easily switch your focus to an other one. Then see if you can listen/focus on two melodies at the same time, then three... https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL81D26D4A47388279

In general I would not worry to much about the performer, but it might be interesting to listen to different interpretations of the same piece, particularly from composers with very idiosyncratic styles. On youtube, Ashish Xiangyi Kumar (https://www.youtube.com/c/AshishXiangyiKumar) has videos of pieces (mainly piano solo) interpreted by different artist.

Youtube used to be a treasure trove for discovering classical music. Listen to a piece/composer you like and you'd get quite good suggestions to go from there, often from lesser known composers and rare recordings.

These days those have mostly been scrubbed from Youtube and if they're still they're they're pretty undiscoverable since the suggestion algorithm is so bad now.

I've made an opinionated playlist for some friends that you may enjoy. It includes my favorites from the past few years, and has a semi-decent range of composers/time periods. I will keep adding to it.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5iXkMfXJPsaqcAgZBu6eAU

It's very much a personal thing. As time goes by, we discover composers and pieces we want to return to over and over. At that point, you'll probably prefer some performances of particular pieces (conductor, orchestra, soloists, tempos, tame or wild-eyed) better than others. For example, some conductors will rush through something (to get it over with?) while others will work hard to make you feel every phrase, hear each instrumental solo.

This all takes time ... and will probably change over time for you. Try to make mental (or paper) notes when you really like a performance. Some conductors are really good in certain periods, but are flat in others.

In the past few years, I most enjoyed Christian Thielemann's conducting of the Beethoven symphonies. Pretty hard to go wrong with the Vienna Philharmonic ... before Brahms, that is. OTOH, Karajan ruins everything. ;->

Fwiw, I have learned a lot by listening to classical radio in the background every day.

Some of the great stations (imho -- KDFC in SF, CPR Classical Colorado, King FM in Seattle, Portland's station) have outstanding DJs who talk about the composers, soloists, conductors, orchestras, time period, etc.

I recommend BBC Radio 3 for the same reasons.

IDK if this makes it more approachable, but one of my favorite things to listen to of all time is Vivaldi Recomposed (Max Richter). It's the four seasons, still a mini-orchestra but with modern sound techniques. I find it haunting and beautiful and I listen it all the time when I'm working. Has good pacing ups and downs, reminds me of the old Sim City building music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYWfJuMGMA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebm69gW9UlI

When I want to find new things I listen to Classical King FM (they stream online here). I find they have really good taste.

https://www.king.org/

Whenever I hear something I like, I write down the piece and the conductor/orchestra.

They helped me find all sorts of good recordings and compositions that I otherwise wouldn't have listened to. For some reason, for my whole life I thought I didn't like Brahms. But the third time that I heard some breathtaking piece, thinking "what is this??", and then finding out it was Brahms, I realized my mind had been changed.

For modern performances Stefan Jackiw soloing for Max Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy is my favorite piece of music. And you can fortunately watch it on YouTube. I’ve listened to a number of recordings and no others compare, not even Heifetz’s. I’d listen to Stefan Jackiw perform just about anything though, with any orchestra - something about his playing enchants me.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3aVET-CDRWk

Learning a bit of music history will give you a roadmap. By placing a composer in the time line of the evolution of western music, you will have a scaffold to frame your listening and other learning. When you hear something you like (or don’t like) look at when the composer was working and who they studied under. Then explore a bit about that time period and the artistic aims of the composers of that period. Listen to what you enjoy and to music adjacent (by time and school) to what you enjoy.

This show: Exploring music with Bill McGlaughlin

https://www.wfmt.com/programs/exploring-music/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploring_Music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McGlaughlin

This might not be what you are looking for (and, indeed, it doesn't quite answer your question), but it has had a meaningful impact on my quality of life

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-to-listen-to-and...

It can be had for cheap via audible.

May I recommend Leonard Bernstein’s series Omnibus.

> Whenever I’ve asked HN for help, I’ve ended up with new favourite recordings of all time.

What are your favorite recordings? I’ve been listening to a lot of Bach myself lately, but I am also a neophyte. I got into Bach via the Modern Jazz Quartet’s John Lewis’ interpretations of the Well Tempered Clavier. Bach has been a trip.

Wow 2nd time I have heard someone talk about Maria Callas in 2 days!

So you must listen to her in Aida and La Traviata.

As far as classical one of the most amazing pieces I can recommend is Scheherazade by Korsakov.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade_(Rimsky-Korsakov)

I do it this way: Find some piece you really like, then find an interpretation you really like.

I think that's actually the way it should be. People tend to hype this or that conductor or sound, and there is certainly merit to it, but I think it is even more a matter of taste than the actual music. Once you really like a certain symphony, you will listen to it many times. Then, you will have some opinion on how things should be played to excite you, make you happy etc.

Min/maxing composer/performance dyads based on reputation is probably pretty nonsensical, even if it is nerdy fun. For example, there are some pieces I really like, and I acknowledge that Karajan is "the man", but his recording simply doesn't give me the right vibe to enjoy the music compared to some obscure conductor I found somewhere on an old compilation CD.

One last thing: I personally do not enjoy Bach, much of Mozart, Vivaldi or "Classical"/Baroque music. There is a whole world of stuff beyond that, however, and some of it is very different. Bruckner, Mahler, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mendelssohn.

In fact, the first thing I recommend is usually Dvorak 9th Symphony "A new World". Its second movement (Largo I think it is called) is eye-wateringly beautiful, but it also doesn't turn off people who get bored by Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi et al (like me).

These kinds of questions are frequently asked and answered in detail on Reddit r/classical music [0]

The FAQ on the right side of the home page has links to introductory pages.

You're starting on a fun journey!

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalmusic/

As someone with just a touch of classical knowledge from high school band and such, I’ve truly enjoyed and learned a lot from the Classical Classroom podcast (https://classicalclassroomshow.com/).

Listen to a radio station curated by genuine experts, like BBC Radio 3, and learn which curators you like.

The piece that first got me interested in classical music was Arthur Rubinstein playing Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto (the "Emperor Concerto"). I recommend that piece, but I particularly recommend Rubinstein's performance.

Watch Disney’s Fantasia (both of them). They’re a bit of a who’s who of classical music and a good jumping board to find more stuff. The first one is also an animation tour de force (the second is pretty damn good too, but not as groundbreaking)

i am not sure it's a good beginner piece... the music was playing second fiddle to the animation.

> Many found fault with Stokowski's rearrangements and abridgements of the music. Igor Stravinsky, the only living composer whose music was featured in the film, expressed displeasure at how in Stokowski's arrangement of The Rite of Spring, "the order of the pieces had been shuffled, and the most difficult of them eliminated", and criticized the orchestra's performance, observing that the simplification of the score "did not save the musical performance, which was execrable"

That’s a fair point.

Shostakovich's string quartets by the Pavel Haas Quartet are just really amazing to me.

Nikolai Kasputin wrote a lot of jazz-inspired, but still "classical" pieces. Won't quite sound like much of the rest of what you'll encounter.

If I may add my own recommendation — Ralph Kirschbaum's 1993 recordings of Bach's cello suites (blue cover). My entire Spotify subscription is basically "let me listen to this one album, please. Thanks."

Some great recommendations already here, I'll add another one: https://www.reddit.com/r/classicalresources

This might interest you: https://www.thegreatcourses.com/professors/robert-greenberg

Read Music for Life by Fiona Maddocks: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HDY2O0E

My favorites:

Baroque / Europa Galante / Fabio Biondi

Ancient music / La Capella Reial de Catalunya / Jordi Saval

I would recommend going to live concerts. Classical music is about emotional communication between humans. A live performance is a much richer human communication channel than a recording. The moment in time is unique and not reproducible. My greatest emotional feelings were while live listening or self playing. I always remember them.

Back in the good old days of mp3s I decided I wanted my library to be as 'accurate' as possible with its metadata. I spent a lot of time manually editing metadata.

Tchaikovsky was stored as 'Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский'. As you might expect, this turned out to be a bad idea on many levels:

* No searching

* Always ends up on the top/bottom of alphabetically sorted lists

* Took much longer to work out which artist it was because I'm not fluent in Cyrillic

* The Microsoft Zune's fonts did not support most non-ASCII characters (this was a big one!)

That being said, I was young and it looked cool, so I kept it :)

I did the same thing back in the day in iTunes with Japanese artists etc. But iTunes had comment and "Sort Artist" and "Sort Title" fields that solved your first 2 problems and the iPod supports the same set of unicode as the Mac, so it worked out pretty well. It also helped teach me Japanese!

People complained about the bloat in iTunes, but at times all those features did come in handy! I'll miss the depth of features once Apple finally ends up replacing the Mac music app with a port of the dumbed-down streaming service they have on iOS.

The iTunes service/app in Japan also has a bad habit of automatically converting western artist names into their Japanese transliterated equivalents (eg. Billy Joel → ビリー・ジョエル) despite me not asking for it. Some tracks in your library would get the metadata converted while some other tracks (probably ones ripped from CDs not found in iTunes Match's database) stay as-is, hence both notations end up in the database, making a mess. Really wish it wouldn't do that.

I hate when automatic translation is creeping into software or websites without a way to stop it. In particular since a few month youtube decided it was ok to list video on its home page with translated titles. As I browse videos in 3/4 languages, it became hard to know what language a video will be it. I did some change on language preferences in my account but it didn't really solve the problem.

Please don't bring that to Apple, and yes I am also frustrated that this happens. Unfortunately, it's in the whim of the publishers, and I wish that if your device is in English, it should just use Latin letters, but ultimately it's Apple vs Publishers.

I won't be shocked if other services do show Latin letters though, Apple has negotiated the agreements literally 10 years prior everyone else in a period where everything except iTunes was physical and you don't want to change the contracts as much as possible, so the status quo.

That's why it makes sense to own classical music rather than rely on a streaming service that will change, come and go (like in this case). In my case I listen to a lot of opera, I have one or two reference recordings for each opera, and I exclude the recitative which aren't really music or interesting when you just listen.

100% agree.

Actually I go further, I think those into art should always express that through ownership.

Books go out of print or the translation varies. Films are unavailable if they're not one of the top grossing films, and even if they are then they can be unavailable (i.e. Disney exercising artificial scarcity over historical titles).

I own and ripped over 6k CDs into FLAC a long time ago, and still a good number of these are not available on streaming services even though they were major releases in the UK in the 1990s and 2000s. Why? Because the coverage of EPs, Singles, B-sides, and some variations of albums (Japanese imports with extra tracks) isn't represented by Spotify, Google Music, Tidal, Apple, etc.

The only way to ensure you can enjoy something in the future is to own it today.

For me, music, video and book streaming / digital rental fills a different problem space - discovery before ownership.

You make a good point. If you come into an appreciation of certain genres of film or music, and the items you want are out of print, your options are to find the content on the secondary market or acquire pirated copies.

I am always more than willing to pay for content, but what is one supposed to do when what you want is out of print and there are no viable secondary market options?

I have a really serious problem, but I spent more than a decade trying to find a copy of REM’s (Hib-Tone) Radio Free Europe 45. That quest led me to dig through some of the sketchiest crates on the planet before I finally gave up and ordered a copy on eBay.

To this day, it remains one of the possessions I love most. The hunt and all the crates I dug through add a mythology that beats the actual product. The mix is really good and shows Mitch Easter at his absolute best, but the hunt is worth even more than the artistry.

That’s all a long way of saying if there aren’t any secondary market options, keep digging. You’ll eventually find it and the story will be worth more than the recording.

I hear you. I wish there were more places to dig through sketchy crates! All of my favorite used record stores have vanished and the joy of finding a rare item in a crate is harder and harder to find.

I'll keep digging!

This is the only way if also if you're into underground i.e. dance music. Private torrent trackers are the only way to acquire vast swaths of music, many of which was even quite popular at the time of its release.

Also helpful are YouTube, SoundCloud, and if you want to listen to contemporary music, things like NTS radio.

It makes me sad that young people today growing up on Spotify simply cannot find out about most of the music I grew up with, or most of the music that excites me coming out today, unless they go "off road."

I grew up in a small town in the 90's, and dance music was just something you sometimes heard in the background of movies. Getting into underground music back then would have meant driving a couple hundred miles.

I'm not clear - are you saying most tunes you grew up with+new releases that excite you aren't on youtube? or that you think youngsters aren't clicking outside spotify?

Maybe it's just the genres I'm into but between youtube and soundcloud (+ a bit of bandcamp) maybe 95% of underground music new or old that I look for is available. Knowing it exists in the first place is a step of course but once you find something good both sites seem pretty good at suggesting similar tracks.

Do you know where to buy FLACs for classical music? I would love to pay money for good quality music to put on my computer without having to buy physical CDs.

I've been pretty happy with qobuz. If you're looking for something particularly rare then they might not have it but I've never had an issue finding the standard stuff with them.

Of course it always makes sense to own recordings, but I find it either ludicrously expensive or unimaginably boring.

Going by my streaming history, if I owned the recordings I listened too I'd have a full CD shelf for the late Beethoven Sonatas. The same again for the Concerto's, perhaps two for the Symphonies. I've just spent £150 at IKEA just to hold the basics of Beethoven, before I've even got the CD's!

Of course the alternative is to only listen to my 'preferred' interpretations, which is the unimaginable boredom. Zimerman's ballades are too dry, Perahia's too wet, Horowitz's too unorthodox, Ashkenazy's too uneven; but I'll listen to all of them again and again and again. I'm not picking a favourite here. I'd forget Chopin before I pick one.

Finally, so what if my streaming service comes and goes? I just go somewhere else.

I know it's not the same thing, but I like to stream classical radio some times. Obviously, it's curated instead of user-selected, but as a casual listener I'm more inclined to trust someone else's taste. WQXR has a few different streams. I'm partial to New Sounds.

I would argue that this argument extends to any music. The top 40 will probably never vanish, but unless you're totally happy listening to only that, there will always be library churn - unless that library lives in mp3s on a backed up hard drive.

Super agree. I still buy digital music mostly because I buy classical recordings that I think are worth listening over my life time.

I find classical music even more enjoyable if you have the sheet music to follow along.

Similarly, browsing for Jazz (and some other genres) on streaming services really killed the main way I learned about music growing up. Usually you'd look at an album's liner notes, see who was playing what instrument, and go find more records that that person played on. To give an example, I might have been listening to John Coltrane's Blue Train record, really loved the trumpet player, and have gone and found some Lee Morgan records.

I hate to admit it, but Spotify has made me lazy when it comes to music discovery, to the point where the only way I get excited to find new things is by digging for vinyl at a record store. The services feel built for passive entertainment consumption, not discovering and learning about new art.

Funny, for me it has been the opposite. Spotify plus Google plus Wikipedia has been awesome.

I wonder if there's anything that ties in data from Discogs to what you're playing on Spotify, think that'd make a difference? I realise it'd be prone to incorrect matches.

I find jazz has a similar problem: there may be a band leader but usually each instrumentalist is of note, and there is no way I am aware of to track each performer in an ID3 or APE tag.

Consider for example the Cannonball Adderley album "Somethin' Else" [1]. The album artist is Cannonball because he led the session, but he is in no way the 'author' of the entire album. The performances of Miles, Hank, Sam and Art on their respective instruments are what make the album what it is. In addition, some of the tunes are 'standards': "Autumn Leaves" is by Kosma and "Love for Sale" is by Porter, although I suppose this info could be stored in the ID3 composer field on each track.

I would love a way to track performers across all my jazz albums and be able to see which albums different people performed on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somethin%27_Else_(Cannonball_A...

I've found similar problems with a bunch of group names. For instance, I want to listen to more Gerry Mulligan, specifically Gerry Mulligan and the Concert Jazz Band, which had a Complete Verve recordings album that I got from the jazz collection at my university's music school, but Spotify and Apple do not have. They did several other albums and Mulligan had other groups (trios, quartets, etc) but they're hard to correlate together. Many of the jazz greats were in the boat where they performed on a lot of things that wouldn't list them as primary artists, but that's how you need to find them to find 95% of their work -- especially in instruments like my favorite: trombone. Band leader vs band members doesn't even have an ID3 field to the best of my knowledge without just sticking them all into the artist field. Compound that with the amount of jazz out there in the no-copyright state (because of age or racism or both in the distant past) that only exists in a collector's collection as a 45rpm stamping with low-ish quality and it turns out that there's a lot of missing music from pre-1950 or so.

It'd be great if there was a music service that somehow incorporated the metadata in something like the Allmusic database. Say for example, while listening to an album, you could click on any side member and easily access any other album they'd played on. Same with songwriters, or album producers, recording engineers, etc. You can get all or most of this manually, but tied into a listening interface would be pretty slick.

That said, I don't know how much of a market there'd be for this

There is, sort of; it's called Roon, and IIRC its interface can do exactly what you're describing. Back when I was a subscriber, its equivalent of a "daily discovery" list would frequently come up with things like "Highlighted Performer: Drums McDrumface" and create a playlist of every song in my library McDrumface played drums on.

https://roonlabs.com

The downside with Roon is that it's not actually a standalone music service; it's sort of like a software-only version of Sonos or Bluesound, letting you aggregate your personal library and (extremely) select streaming services and send sound to any Roon client device (a computer or mobile device running Roon software or, in some cases, directly to hardware that supports Roon's transport protocol). And, it's still a subscription service -- so you're paying $10/month for great metadata, that multidevice playback system, and an "audiophile" music player. I subscribed for a couple years, but decided I really couldn't justify it.

I very much agree; particularly as I may wish to hear particular bassists and they are usually not listed as the band leader. It would also be useful to able to add multiple tags, both "jazz" and "post bop", for example.

wish there was an algorithm that could make me a playlist full of stuff that sounds like Blue in Green from Kind of Blue.

That's unfortunate to hear... Accurate metadata matters to both the artist and the consumer, as you experienced yourself. I feel the need to shamelessly chime in with this because of how random this is, seeing our name on Hacker News: I'm one of the founding guitarists of VERIDIA and yes, the music is rock.

And then trying to play a playlist on "shuffle" will mess up the ordering of the movements of the pieces, and on "auto" it will just keep playing the same 3 most popular pieces but by various principal soloists or something.

We worked with Primephonic on the development of the platform, and this was one of the topics that got a lot of attention. In this talk about the app architecture [1] a former team mate touches upon the datamodel briefly.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERPmUsLkwEE

It's even dumber than that. Want to listen to Brandenburg Concerto No. 5? You'll find an album whose track names start with "Johann Sebastian Bach -- Brandenburg Concertos -- BWV No. XXX" and because the strings are cut off by the UI, you can't see which one is which.

It's such a nuisance in choral music as well. There are about 1 million canticles, by hundreds of composers, to hundreds of settings, sung by hundreds of choirs, scattered across hundreds of albums. Good luck finding anything even slightly off the beaten path.

Apple Music currently doesn't even get this right within the same album. I've added a Beethoven piano concerto recording from Apple Music to my library, which at some point was suddenly split into two albums:

https://i.imgur.com/HF59nNj.png

The albums spontaneously splitting is not limited to classical music. It has happened several times that an album I had added to the library got replaced by a dozen best-off albums containing 1-2 songs each.

As an Apple Music subscriber, I welcome the acquisition, and hope that problems like these will be reduced, and I can listen to the 4th concerto in one go again.

As a fellow Apple Music subscriber, I regret to confirm the "Apple Music currently doesn't even get this right within the same album" as a common problem across all genres. :) My personal library really isn't very big, but it still shows what I call "metadata drift": you add an album that has 12 tracks, and eventually notice that while your library still contains those 12 songs, somehow there are now only six tracks on that album, with the other six tracks replaced by versions on various compilations (and if the data gods are feeling particularly mischievous, maybe a live version).

Also got the Album splitting with one Album from Genesis. On top of that, Apple Music deletes tracks from my library, claiming it has no license - but those tracks were ripped from CD, no idea how I could get them back, I do still have the original files on my Mac.

It's a metadata/economics problem.

One solution is to use musicbrainz, and contribute as you go.

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/9ddd7abc-9e1b-471d-8031-583bc...

https://musicbrainz.org/work/80737426-8ef3-3a9c-a3a6-9507afb...

Many years ago I was a huge fan of Music Brainz. I found a mis-named album info one time, submitted a request with changes to correct them, was rejected out of hand for an innocuous reason, and never went back. Which is too bad. As an idea and as a model, I love it. But you need the right culture/tool as well.

I know nothing about Music Brainz, but isn't it inevitable that something with humans involved will sometimes have errors? Is there such a thing as a restaurant that doesn't sometimes get a customer's order wrong, or a team of website moderators (paid or unpaid) who don't occasionally make the wrong judgement call, or a piece of software that occasionally had a bug that wasn't spotted in QA?

To go from being a "huge fan" to refusing to use it after a single mistake seems a very extreme reaction, unless that incident caused you to look into it more and discover that they're constantly making similar mistakes.

For something like restaurants there's often enough competing options to let a single mistake sour you to a place and choose alternatives in the future, but even then it a restaurant I was a huge fan of messed up a visit of mine I'd most likely give them another chance unless they literally didn't care care that something had gone wrong suggesting it's likely to keep happening.

edit: Also curious about what their rejection reason was that led you to describe it as "innocuous", seems an odd adjective to include without context.

MusicBrainz Picard is the thing that rewrote all of my Russian composers in Cyrillic and after that I was never able to find any of them ever again.

musicbrainz takes a hard line on the correctness of metadata and will preferably use the original names of composers, bands, etc. that includes cyrillic, kanji, and even symbols like david bowie's "".

There are ways to make this work better or ways around it:

https://community.metabrainz.org/t/stylized-album-band-names...

I remembered stumped onto an Amsterdam based classical music streaming service a few weeks ago that has a landing page explaining why they do per-second streaming subscription fee share with artists instead of the per-track share, which I think also makes a lot of sense for classical music.

Some googling seems to suggest that's Primephonic but I'm not 100% sure about it (since they took down all their pages).

Yes it was Primephonic, found the page on wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210301042145/https://www.prime...

I highly suggest trying out a classical music collection in Roon. It specifically models some of this stuff to give a better experience.

Roon provides the best classical music experience I've seen (better than when I tried primephonic previously) - there are still some papercuts, but generally it handles normalizing classical metadata well

> Where an app may have an "artist" field, classical music will have "composer" and then for the performers it will have "orchestra", "conductor", "principal soloists". For an opera all of those are primary fields that could be considered "artist".

Yeah, this is maddening. Although in many ways it's not isolated to classical - the whole standards for tagging and the presentation thereof are woefully inadequate for any case where you want to be able to have a soloist or multiple composers but be able to find the same composer/songwriter regardless of who they've worked with, or featured artists in hiphop, or...

I can understand that back in the MP3 days of the late 90s/early years of the century it was "a good start" but the lack of any meaningful improvements is woeful.

Yup. What I really want is to be able to browse by composer, then work, and then show me all the performances (regardless of whether a whole album or part of an album), and let be sort/filter by popularity, trending, new, and performer.

I'm honestly pretty surprised the metadata problem hasn't been solved by now. Even if the labels are providing it in an inconsistent format, cleaning it all up to 99.9% consistency seems like it could be done fairly efficiently. The universe of the names of classical composers and performers isn't that large.

Have you tried Idagio? As a longtime user, I believe it would address your needs rather well.

https://www.idagio.com/

The way voice assistants behave with classical metadata is just terrible, too. Once I naively asked Android Auto to play Act II from Carmen, and it proceeded to recite all of the metadata from the record, which went one for a good solid minute.

"OK, playing 'Act 2, Chanson, "Halte-là! Qui va là?", by Georges Bizet, José Carreras & Claudine Coster & Isabelle Karajan & Alain Hitier & Maria Laborit & Berliner Philharmoniker & Herbert von Karajan & Georges Bizet ..."

It was just endless!

Since this thread will attract classical music fans... anyone want to offer what they think are the all-time greatest recordings of particular pieces? I'll start, Murray Perahia does the definitive recording of Moonlight Sonata Mvmt 3:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=352qLWqKN-U

All I really wanted was being able to see the full name of the piece when I open an album in Spotify.

> I'm really glad someone is investing in this

A lot of companies have been investing in this for a while now. Primephonic (which Apple just bought) is only one example. I use Idagio, and I'm very impressed with the quality of the metadata and the search function.

Correctly naming performers in different writing systems is just as difficult for non-Classical genres. E.g. this week I listened to a track whose title was given (on Amazon) as "Set The Fire To The Third Bar [feat. マーザ・ウィンライト]".

Tragedy of the commons. Since no one owns the tracks anyone can use any valid way of indicating the artists name.

No one except the platform actually has the right to merge artist names together when the artist is out of copyright.

I've been giving Qobuz a whirl for technical listening, and they have a very intentional approach to classical music. I'm a bit of a newbie, but I did receive the recommendation from other listeners.

You are so painfully correct. I wish I knew Primephonic existed because I would have subscribed!

If Apple does this well it could be enough to get me to switch from Spotify to Apple Music. I am not optimistic though.

Such an enlightening comment. This is why I come back to HN, I had no idea why it was so hard to discover classical music (and I've experienced that pain point myself)

Ah. Well, they're all the same person. Or rather... the same persona. So we know they're a unique person... or persona. But what is identity anyway?

What do I mean? Richard David James went by several different aliases. They're all the same person. But not the same persona? Maybe.

Couldn't Pac-Mac by Power Pill just be considered Aphex Twin's work? I'd argue, sure.

But Brad Strider's work, which is really just Richard again, is in my opinion significant enough from the rest of his work, can you group them together? Discogs still does, and that makes sense to me.

Ha, I’d write ‘Tjajkovskij’ in Swedish and ‘Tschaikowski’ in German, so i guess there are even more variations…

Working on this problem of spellings (including non-Latin alphabet versions) was super interesting.

Yes, fixing the metadata problem is so important. I hope it also means a much larger catalog.

Don't worry Siri will handle this all for you now. You just have to say the words.

"Now playing 'A relaxing Chai Tea on the seaside' radio from spotify."

I can never get Siri to play things on Spotify for me. So without an Apple Music subscription, it always tries to play radios from Tune-In instead. :/