How to organize and tag classical music

[bhl66]

Hello Simon,

I have started FLAC ripping of my CDs and tagging with partly customized tags some weeks/months ago and have only a small classical music collection among them.

Recently, I have got the Naxos 12 CD box "The complete Beethoven symphonies - concertos - overtures".

Tagging is a challenge here since the symphonies e.g. are not distributed in ascending order over the CDs, e.g. CD 1 contains symphony no. 1 and no. 6.

Furthermore, the CD set contains recordings from five different orchestras / conductors and numerous solists.

However, I want to keep the FLAC files all in a single folder, trying to bring them into a reasonable order, first starting with the symphonies in their natural numbering. Here, I do not use the group tag so far but rather virtual disc numbers like [disc 01] as Album tag suffix ... with verbose CD titles like "Symphony no. 1". Also, each symphony / concerto (or a reasonable combination for smaller works) gets its own CD number with the movements beginning from track 01 within.

In general, I fill:

AlbumArtist = <Orchestra>, <Conductor first name> <Conductor last name>
AlbumArtistSort = <Orchestra> (<Conductor last name>, <Conductor first name>)
AlbumSmartSort (custom tag) = <Composer last name>, <Composer first name>
Album = <CD box title> [disc nn]
Artist = <Composer first name> <Composer last name>
ArtistSort = <Composer last name>, <Composer first name>

Also, I have filled separate Composer, ComposerSort, Orchestra, Conductor, and Solist tags.

The custom tag AlbumSmartSort contains:
* ComposerSort for classical music
* Album for soundtracks and other compilations
* AlbumArtistSort for all other music.

My relevant MinimServer settings are:

indexTags = Artist, Date, Genre, All Artists, Composer, Orchestra, Conductor

itemTags = AlbumArtist, ArtistSort, AlbumArtistSort, AlbumSmartSort,
ComposerSort, Solist

mergeFolderAlbums = false

tagOptions = Album.sortTags={AlbumSmartSort, +Date, Album}, all.ignore.sort={The, Der, Die, Das, El, Le, La, Los, Las, Les}, -Album.ignore.sort, Date.yearOnly.index

tagValue = AlbumSmartSort.default={ArtistSort, AlbumArtistSort}, Artist.value.sort={ArtistSort}, AlbumArtist.value.sort={AlbumArtistSort}, Composer.value.sort={ComposerSort}

showExtras = true

startupScan = true

tagCustom = AlbumArtist.displayRole={artist}, Composer.displayRole={artist}

tagFormat = Artist.displayFormat={$artist$orchestra$conductor$solist}

My AlbumSmartSort tag is all the same for the whole CD collection, here =
'Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia, Béla Drahos / Capella Istropolitana, Barry Wordsworth / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hilary Davan Wetton' while
Album = 'The complete Beethoven Symphonies - Concertos - Overtures [disc nn]'

What really I don't want, is to stuff the AlbumArtist and AlbumArtistSort with all five orchestra / conductor combinations, meaning for the particular Beethoven set:

AlbumArtist =
'Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia, Béla Drahos / Capella Istropolitana, Barry Wordsworth / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Hilary Davan Wetton / Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Stephen Gunzenhauser / Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Kenneth Jean'

AlbumArtistSort =
'Nicolaus Esterházy Sinfonia (Drahos, Béla) / Capella Istropolitana (Wordsworth, Barry) / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Davan Wetton, Hilary) / Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra (Gunzenhauser, Stephen) / Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra (Jean, Kenneth)'

However, if I use different AlbumArtist / AlbumArtistSort assignments, only with orchestras / conductors relevant for a particular CD, multiple instances of the CD appear in the Kazoo app.

How can I get MinimServer to leave all tracks together without having such huge AlbumArtist(Sort) tags?