I’ve got two releases that do similar things with their printed tracklists. (Images might not be from those exact releases, but are just to illustrate the point.) In both cases, there’s a heading (maybe an overall work title but I’m not sure) like “<number> <type of work>” and then under that the individual tracks don’t repeat the “<type of work>” part. Which of these is correct for the track titles? (Currently all 3 of these forms are used on the releases.)
For the overall title I would – when in doubt – usually look for the Works. Chopins 4 Ballads have four different op. numbers and are composed composed between 1831 and 1842. Our Work List uses „Ballades“ (not „4 Ballades“ as main title composed between 1831 and 1842. Work “Ballades” - MusicBrainz . Since „4 Ballades: Ballade no. 1 in G minor, op. 23“ seems a bit of an overkill I would just go for „Ballade no. 1 in G minor, op. 23“ (considering the title „4 Ballades“ more a Collection title than an overall Work title
It’s important to remember that work names and track titles are very different.
If the result is at all reasonable, track titles should use the work name as it’s presented on the actual release, with some changes to punctuation and capitalization, and the official album booklet being preferred over the tracklist on streaming services — even for an album on a streaming service that doesn’t provide booklets.
Number 1 is correct for track titles, as that’s what’s printed in the tracklist.
Number 3 is what I would prefer for a work title, but it’s not quite how the titles are formatted in the printed tracklist
Number 2 is bad; it leaves out part of the work.
For the “6 sinfonie” album, the tracklist has no heading with the main work title, so just give up and use “Sinfonia di concerto grosso no. 1 in F…” or “No. 1 in F” in for track titles.
Garbage in, garbage out. If the album has an ugly tracklist, then MusicBrainz should have an ugly tracklist.
Yeah, I was only asking about track titles. @chabreyflint some of your post seems to be about works more than tracks. Did you mean to say all that about tracks?
Personally, I avoid anything remotely classical for digital media releases because of how bad the metadata is and how they often mess up gapless playback. But just out of curiosity, how does that work to use a printed booklet for digital media? There are often so many different booklets in the same release group, so how would you match a digital release up to a specific physical release’s booklet?
That’s what I was leaning towards too.
You don’t think “6 sinfonie di concerto grosso” from the release title is meant as a heading for all the tracks? (I could go either way, not sure.)
