Maybe I’m being a bit dim, but I’m stuck in MB’s labyrinthine passages.
I have this release https://musicbrainz.org/release/b5028037-1e13-4ef9-84da-31469566f539
This shows “Release credits” (at the bottom) as follows:
bass-baritone vocals: Michael George (operatic bass)
choir vocals: BBC Singers (professional chamber choir of the BBC)
conductor: Harry Christophers
engineer: Stephen Rinker (engineer)
mezzo-soprano vocals: Lynette Alcántara
orchestra: BBC Philharmonic
producer: Mike George (classical producer)
soprano vocals: Nancy Argenta
tenor vocals: William Kendall
However the listed singers do not perform on all tracks, as the track listing shows. Including them in the release credits causes Picard to think they should be credited on every track, which looks wrong.
I thought perhaps I might try and fix it, but I have no idea how to edit these - the artist credits for the release (and group) are just:
Haydn; BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, Harry Christophers
Where are the other release credits? What are the style guidelines relevant to this?
Release credits are meant to be used when it is not known on which specific recordings the artists perform. In Picard there is an option (under metadata) to use release relationships. If you uncheck that option, Picard will only add performer relationships to tags if the performers are added to the recordings.
If the recording relationships in your release are correct, there is no need to have the release relationships: they are duplicate and less precise than the recording relationships. You can remove the release relationships in the relationship editor.
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Many thanks. As usual - it’s obvious once you know how!
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just out of curiosity…
For example - Michael George is listed as a solo singer in the song credits.
Is it possible that he sang “backup” in the other songs, which would then justify him being listed on the album credits?
I you can find any proof or source for such a thing, credit him on the tracks. If you can’t provide such a source we shall have to assume that he did not sing which justifies to not credit him 
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I’ll listen to it, but (for example) track 14 is clearly for two solo singers only and it makes no sense to list Michael George as bass-baritone and baritone on the same track. Also, the mezzo(/alto?) only sings on the last track. Given that the chorus is the BBC singers, I doubt any of the soloists are doing “backing vocals” on other tracks - this would be rather unusual for oratorio.
Having said that, there may be errors in the track relationships that only listening plus a bit of research will determine, since the soloists are only explicitly credited at the release level on the CD booklet (with implicit credits via their roles on the tracks).
On a slightly separate note there seems to be a bit of confusion over voice types. Wikipedia lists these as Bass, Tenor, Soprano and Alto. The CD cover lists them as Bass-baritone, Tenor, Soprano and Mezzo-soprano, but describes the last role as Alto in the detailed notes. MB shows Michael George as being Bass-baritone for Raphael, but Baritone for Adam. I’ll do a bit more research, but should voice type descriptions in relationships follow the score (where possible) or the home range of the singer?
The printed type. If there’s no printed type, unless you’re very sure, it might even be better to stick to “vocals”.
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I’ll go with the CD cover then and change baritone to bass-baritone, which is at least consistent with a bass role (per wikipedia).
I’ve made the edits in line with this discussion. In the process, I realised that there are duplicate entries for Michael George - https://musicbrainz.org/artist/55eaf843-bb99-49ec-b34c-cfe7caace107 and https://musicbrainz.org/artist/89ec9cfb-80ec-4f5b-b7bf-6bab1462044c.
AFAIK these are duplicates. I went with the latter as it has more links, but I’m not sure how/whether to merge them.
You should click “Merge” on both artist pages, and then follow the instructions, pretty much 
But you should also make sure that they are the same people and not just two people with the same name that sing in the same genre.
It is possible that they are two different people - especially with common names like John Smith.
It also is possible that, not only are they different people, but some of the credits from person 1 are listed on person 2’s page, which could make it seem like they are the same people if not thoroughly investigated.
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