ITunes for classical music

Question

iTunes' structures are for "songs" (one song, one track). A CD of classical music contains one or more "works", each consisting of one or more "movements" (usually one track, one movement). How can I store and manage classical music with iTunes, or are there any alternative applications?

Answer 1

Obviously, different users will have different approaches to this problem.
I too am an avid fan of classical music (my iTunes library is over 90% classical). I'm not a great fan of a multiplicity of playlists, though, so I adopt a different approach. I have separate genres for different types of musical pieces — Chamber, Instrumental, Vocal, Operatic and so on. I then have one enclosing folder in my Source list (I call it Classical Categories), within which I have a number of smart playlists (Chamber Music, Concerto, Instrumental, Orchestral, Symphonic). I view these smart playlists as lists grouped with artwork and sort these lists by composer. This has the effect of neatly dealing with those situations where the original CD contains works by different composers, since it separates these out and displays them separately. CDs devoted to music by a single composer still remain grouped as a single item, but viewing as a list grouped with artwork helps make each CD stand out from its neighbours and aids clarity.
Using the search field within any of my smart playlists gives me instant access, for example, to all symphonies or all concertos (or whatever) by any single composer. In many ways, indeed, iTunes has proved to be a better way to access music in my library than was ever possible with physical CDs on shelves — I've lost track of the number of times I've found it frustratingly difficult to find a particular piece of music 'in the old days' because it was part of a CD which I'd filed under a different composer's name because music by that composer was what I bought the CD for originally.
As I say, we'll all find different solutions to the problem of using iTunes for classical music, but I'm happy with mine. What would be wonderfully helpful would be for Apple to introduce into iTunes the grouping by 'Work' which they use in the iTunes Store. I also wish they'd drop the use of that word 'song', which is so frustratingly inappropriate in a classical context, and replace it with 'track'. I've submitted feedback about these points on numerous occasions. Perhaps Apple will address the needs of classical collectors at some time in the future.