What do do? Trio name and individual members credited

MusicBrainz
1

I’ve seen this discussed with regard to writing credits, but I’m not sure if the same logic applies to performers.

I have a classical release which, on the front cover, lists the name of the trio performing, and also lists the members of the trio. I was unsure whether performer relationships should be for the Trio, the individuals, or both. I added the Trio as the performer relationship on the release, since the Release Artist already had the Trio.

In this case, the membership of the trio has never changed. The Trio already exists in MB. Two of the members did not exist in MB, so I created their Artist records (minimally - I can’t find much info on them), and associated them with the Trio.

Further thought after the fact has made me wonder if I did the right thing, crediting the Trio instead of the individual members. I found another Trio that has had personnel changes. At least one of their releases credits both the Trio and the individuals, and the Trio is credited as a Release Artist. No performer relationships have been added.

What’s the best way to proceed? Credit just the Trio, just the individuals, or both? It’s not that important when the personnel haven’t changed, but it seems more important when they have.

2

My way of thinking about this is that the Album Artist credit is for recording what the cover of the Release says, and Performer Relationships are for recording the facts about who did what. In this Release, the cover says the Trio and three names, so as a first draft I would put the Trio and the three names in the Release Artist, and also Perfor Relationships for the Trio and for each of the three names.

I would also look through the Style guidelines to see if this situation is covered there.