Are there any portable MP3 players, and computer programs, for storing and playing classical music? Ones that classify by composer and work, not artist and album; that recognise that one CD may contain works by several composers and each work may have several movements; that do not want to play all the movements on the device in alphabetical, or worse, random order? If there is one that can play other codecs (ogg vorbis and FLAC files) so much the better. Edward Evans
Those are questions I have asked myself, without coming up with a good answer (which means I've never bought an MP3 player). One workaround is to start each file name with the appropriate number so the tracks sort in order: 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a etc. Then you store each CD's files in its own folder.
(If you have got used to playing through sets of string quartets in the "wrong" order because that's how they best fitted the original CDs, you might have to number the folders, too.)
Tagging of classical music is a mess, starting with the idiot assumption that "classical" covers everything from Hildegard of Bingham to Tomita, and continuing with the idiot assumption that almost every classical CD is a "compilation". I won't even mention the idiot assumption that you want everything conducted by Karajan sorted together, regardless of composer, and is Karajan sorted by Herbert, by von, or by Karajan?
A quick search for a standards committee working on the problem didn't help, but I did find Taming iTunes for Classical Music. It's also a topic frequently and sensibly discussed in the HydrogenAudio forums. I also discovered that the Gracenote Classical Music Initiative is being presented as the solution.
Having Gracenote deliver useful and accurate tags automagically would be a real breakthough.
But if you have found an MP3 player that is more suitable for playing classical music -- or a player/software combination -- please let us know what it is.
