Classical music tags

Classical music has different organizational needs than popular music. A symphony isn’t an album of separate songs. It’s a single work with multiple movements. BitDek supports classical-specific metadata fields that help organize your collection the way classical music is meant to be understood.

The challenge with classical music

Standard metadata fields were designed for pop and rock:

Track Title - Works for “Bohemian Rhapsody” but not for “Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio”
Artist - Is it the composer? The conductor? The orchestra? The soloist?
Album - A single symphony recorded across one disc, or a compilation of concertos?

Classical collectors have developed conventions to handle these differences. BitDek supports the modern solution: dedicated fields for Work and Movement information.

Classical metadata fields

BitDek reads four classical-specific fields:

Field	Purpose	Example
Work	The complete composition	”Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67”
Movement Name	Name of this movement	”Allegro con brio”
Movement Number	Position in the work	1
Movement Total	Total movements in work	4

When these fields are populated, BitDek can group movements that belong to the same work, display movement information clearly, and sort movements in correct order.

How to tag classical music

The work field

The Work field should contain the complete name of the composition:

Good examples:

“Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125”
“Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467”
“The Four Seasons: Concerto No. 1 in E major, RV 269”
“Goldberg Variations, BWV 988”

Avoid:

Just “Symphony No. 9” (which composer?)
The full title including movement info (that goes in Movement Name)

Include opus numbers, catalog numbers (BWV, K., RV), and key signatures. These help distinguish between works with similar names.

The movement name field

The Movement Name identifies this specific movement:

Good examples:

“Allegro con brio”
“Adagio molto e cantabile”
“Aria”
“Variation 1”

Conventions vary: Some recordings use tempo markings (“Allegro”), others use descriptive names (“Ode to Joy”), and some use both (“IV. Presto - Allegro assai”).

Match what’s on the original album. Consistency within a single recording matters more than global consistency.

Movement number and total

Movement Number indicates position: 1, 2, 3, 4…

Movement Total indicates how many movements exist in the work: 4 for a typical symphony, 30+ for the Goldberg Variations.

These fields enable proper sorting and “movement X of Y” display.

Format-specific tag names

Different audio formats store classical fields differently.

FLAC (Vorbis comments)

BitDek Field	Vorbis Comment
Work	WORK
Movement Name	MOVEMENTNAME
Movement Number	MOVEMENTNUMBER
Movement Total	MOVEMENTTOTAL

Example Vorbis comments:

WORK=Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
MOVEMENTNAME=Allegro con brio
MOVEMENTNUMBER=1
MOVEMENTTOTAL=4

MP3 (ID3 tags)

BitDek Field	ID3 Frame	Notes
Work	TXXX:WORK or TIT1	Extended text or Content Group
Movement Name	MVNM	ID3v2.4 required
Movement Number	MVIN	Format: “1/4”
Movement Total	MVIN	Extracted from “1/4” format

Notes:

TIT1 (Content Group) was repurposed for Work by some taggers
TXXX:WORK is the more explicit choice
Movement Number and Total share one frame, formatted as “1/4”

M4A (iTunes atoms)

BitDek Field	iTunes Atom
Work	©wrk
Movement Name	©mvn
Movement Number	©mvi
Movement Total	©mvc

These atoms were added by Apple specifically for classical music support in iTunes.

Sort tags

Classical collections lean on sort tags harder than any other kind. The Academy of Ancient Music belongs under A, and Beethoven belongs under B rather than under L for Ludwig.

BitDek reads Sort Title, Sort Artist, Sort Album, Sort Album Artist, and Sort Composer, and uses whatever it finds exactly as written. That includes overriding the leading-article sorting described in Browsing your library.

If you tag in M4A or ALAC, check your version. Those sort fields were ignored at import until version 1.3.4. Apple’s own formats never sorted by them, while the same tags worked in MP3 and FLAC the whole time. Classical libraries hit this hardest, since they lean on sort tags more than most collections do.

Update, re-import the affected albums, and the sort order you tagged for finally takes effect.

Organizing classical collections

By composer

Most classical listeners organize primarily by composer:

/Music/Classical/
    Beethoven/
        Symphony No. 5 (Karajan)/
            01 - I. Allegro con brio.flac
            02 - II. Andante con moto.flac
            ...

Set the Album Artist to the composer. This groups all of a composer’s works together in your library.

Set the Artist field to the performer(s): conductor, orchestra, soloists.

By performer

Some listeners prefer organizing by conductor or ensemble:

/Music/Classical/
    Berlin Philharmonic - Karajan/
        Beethoven - Symphony No. 5/
            ...
        Brahms - Symphony No. 1/
            ...

Set Album Artist to the performer. Set Artist to the same, or include the composer.

Hybrid approach

Use the Work field to group regardless of folder structure:

All movements of “Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67” share the same Work value
Different recordings by different performers can be distinguished by Album
Browse by composer (Album Artist) or search by Work

The composer field

BitDek reads your composer tags. Composers arrive as their own credit on each track, alongside lyricists, producers, and mixers, and you’ll find them in the Track Info sheet. You can edit them there too, and the field suggests names already in your library so spellings stay consistent. See Editing metadata in BitDek.

Composers also work in smart rules. An Artist rule matches every credit on a track, composers included, so “Artist contains Sibelius” builds a playlist of everything he wrote in your collection, whoever performs it.

What BitDek doesn’t have is a Composers section in the library, the way it has an Artists section. Two approaches work well in the meantime:

Album Artist = Composer Best for composer-centric browsing today. Everything by Beethoven files together under Beethoven, with the conductor, orchestra, and soloists in the Artist field.

Album Artist = Performer Best if you think in recordings rather than repertoire. Your composer tags still power smart rules, so nothing is lost either way.

Whichever you choose, fill in the Composer field. It earns its keep in smart rules today, and it’s the field any future composer browsing would read.

One note on search: it looks at titles, artists, albums, and album artists, and not at composers. To gather a composer’s works, use a smart rule rather than the search field.

Multi-movement playback

BitDek supports gapless playback, which matters for classical music. Movements meant to transition without pause (attacca) will play seamlessly if your files are organized correctly.

For continuous works like song cycles or opera acts, track order determines playback order. Movement Number helps ensure correct sorting.

Compilations and recitals

Classical compilations (various composers, various performers) follow the same rules as pop compilations. See Album Artist and compilations.

For recital albums (one performer, various composers’ works), each track may have different Work values. This is normal. The album groups them; the Work field identifies each composition.

Tagging tools for classical music

General-purpose taggers work, but some handle classical better:

MusicBrainz Picard - Good classical database, supports Work/Movement fields

MP3Tag - Full control over all fields, scripting for batch operations

Kid3 - Cross-platform, handles classical fields well

Yate (Mac) - Strong classical focus, MusicBrainz integration

See Recommended tagging tools for more details.

Common issues

Missing movement fields

Many older rips lack Work/Movement tags. The fix is manual tagging or using a tagger with database lookup.

Quick fix: Use the Track Title creatively:

TITLE=Symphony No. 5 - I. Allegro con brio

Not ideal, but keeps information visible until you can properly tag.

Inconsistent work names

“Symphony No. 5” vs “Symphony No.5” vs “Symphony #5” creates separate groups.

Pick a standard format and apply it consistently. MusicBrainz provides canonical work names if you need a reference.

Track numbers vs. movement numbers

Track Number is the position on the album. Movement Number is the position in the work.

A two-disc album with two complete symphonies might have:

Disc 1: Symphony A (Movements 1-4) → Tracks 1-4
Disc 2: Symphony B (Movements 1-4) → Tracks 1-4

Track numbers reset per disc. Movement numbers are independent of disc structure.

Opera and large-scale works

Opera acts, oratorio parts, and large symphonic works follow the same principles. Work = the complete opera. Movement = the act or scene. Track = individual numbers within that structure.

Very large works may require creative solutions. Some taggers support hierarchical work structures, though BitDek displays a flat Work field.