Bernstein: The Royal Edition, release titles

MusicBrainz
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1

I’d like to clean up the releases in Bernstein’s The Royal Edition:

I actually own about 60 of the 100 volumes of the series, so it is sort of dear to me.

The problems is that there are inconsistencies in the release titles and I don’t know how to proceed.

I have found 3 title styles:

  1. “The Royal Edition, Volume XX: Work1 / Work2”: sometimes with works by different composers
  2. “The Royal Edition, Volume XX: Composer 1: Work / Composer2: Work”
  3. “Composer 1: Work / Composer 2: Work” (some used to have the disambiguation: “The Royal Edition, Volume XX”

Most releases are currently either style 1 or style 2, and so I actually changed a couple of style 3 titles to style 2, which is the most common and the most appealing to me (in part because that’s how I have them in my FLAC file collection)

As I understand, however, the proper style should be number 3 if there are works by different composers, or "Work 1 / Work 2 / … " when all works are by the same composer.

If I were to clean up with this style I’d add the disambiguation “The Royal Edition, Volume XX”, also because most of these releases are repeated in the “Bernstein Century” series from a few years later.

I’d change all to number 2, but since I’m new here, I don’t want to go against the rules.

What should I do?

4 Likes
2

I think you are on the right track, a clear pattern is easier on the eyes and will help album tags.

1 Like
3

Explain what you are doing on the top of that series. Define the pattern you are using as it is a sensible suggestion.

The main rule is - you must stick to what is on the cover. And I’d recommend only do a few in the first edits and link this thread. Give time for the complainers to complain and state what you are doing “wrong”. If you blitzed all of these in one session you will annoy someone.

One of the main rules with MB is titles must be as the cover and no adjusting things just to make pretty tags.

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4

If it were me, based on the cover (I picked a random release from the series):

Release Title:
The Royal Edition, no. 56 of 100: Symphony no. 39 / Symphony no. 41 "Jupiter"

Release Artist:
Mozart; Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic

EDIT: Actually, if “The Royal Edition” is considered a release title, CSG says:

If a release contains both a title and a list of works it is recommended that only the title is used.

So an argument could be made for:

Release Title:
The Royal Edition: no. 56 of 100

But that isn’t consistent with how MB has other series, such as “Bernstein Century.”

5

Thanks for your replies. I like @Beckfield’s suggestion of

Release Title:
The Royal Edition, no. 56 of 100: Symphony no. 39 / Symphony no. 41 "Jupiter"

Release Artist:
Mozart; Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic

In fact, most Bernstein Century releases use that style, except that there’s no volume number in that series.

I’ll explain the pattern as @IvanDobsky suggest, change a few and post them here.

6

Looking at some of your recent edits on classical releases, a couple guidelines to keep in mind: There are some language-specific guidelines that apply to titles. For instance, in English-language titles, “op.” and “no.” should be lower-cased, and a space between them and the digit (op. 5 instead of op.5, or no. 3 instead of no.3) regardless of whether it’s that way on the actual cover.

Style / Classical / Language / English - MusicBrainz