Best practices for tagging classical music for Symfonium?

Discussion
1

Hi everyone,

I’d like to ask what the recommended / best practice is for tagging classical music so that it shows up correctly in Symfonium.

I have a classical library (FLAC), and I’m trying to decide how to structure the tags so composers, performers, and albums are properly recognized and easy to browse inside Symfonium.

For example:

  • Is it useful to tag the COMPOSER field (e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Bartók)?
    Does Symfonium actually recognize and expose the COMPOSER tag in a meaningful way?

  • Or is it better to simply include both the composer and the performer in ALBUMARTIST (or ARTIST) and call it a day?

  • How do you usually handle cases like soloist + orchestra + conductor?

  • Are multi-value tags (ARTIST / ALBUMARTIST) preferred or supported well for classical music?

I’m not tied to any specific tagging scheme yet, so I’d love to know what has worked best for others using Symfonium with a classical collection.

Thanks in advance!

1 Like
2

You are using a Subsonic server, you need to see with them how they handle tags, Symfonium have no access in that case.

3

Yes, there is not problem with navidrome, i can list as composer or artist or whatever. But, for example if i put in Goldberg Variation from Bach played by Glenn Gould like this:
Artist: Glenn Gould

Albumartist: Glenn Gould

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach will appear in Symfonium in the profile of artist?? i mean, symfonium read the composer tag and use it?

4

Again Symfonium displays what Navidrome sends via it’s API not the tags. Navidrome supports Composer yes.

5

I don’t actually have any classical music in my library but I did some research while building my Now Playing screen. Everyone seems to tag their music differently based on their needs.

First question to ask yourself is: do you want to use all the tag fields “as intended?” Or are you okay with putting info into the “wrong” field if it makes navigation easier for you?

Second question to ask is: how do you intend to navigate your classical music? Do you think to navigate to:

Bach (composer) > Goldberg Variations (referring to the work name) > (any recordings of that work)

Or do you think:

Glenn Gould (performer) > The Goldberg Variations (referring to Gould’s “album”) > (tracks under that album)

Either way can be done in Symfonium. (Even both at once, if you tag wisely.) But which route is better for you will determine how you should tag your files.