topic Strange and annoying results in classical music searches in Content Questions

Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

MusicFanatic2 — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 23:26:52 GMT

This has happened a number of times for me when searching for classical music pieces, even relatively obscure ones. As a case in point, when you search "villa lobos harp concerto" you get a multitude of results with the same personnel, track times and silly album titles (eg Classical Life of Pi, Cigars, Cognacs and Classics, Tone Your Tum, Mega Chill Classical). This personnel includes the nonsensical and non-existent ensemble "Bronze State Philharmonic Orchestra" (which only produces a handful of results if you Google it enclosed in quotes). (In actual fact, it's the same recording as that made by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra recurring numerous times.) Why on earth do the makers of these classical music compilations come up with such names? How does such rubbish get uploaded to Spotify in the first place, and shouldn't there be some kind of quality control? I've encountered too much of this which has no real reason to appear and is making searching classical music more time-consuming and cumbersome than it need be.

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

Taylith — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 04:45:35 GMT

Hey

Sorry to hear about that and sorry for the late response.

You have a valid argument. I, for one, know just how troublesome it can be to find classical music pieces.

I'm afraid Spotify does not have much control over the naming of any content that gets uploaded.

We're really sorry and hope the names they come up with give you a better result in the future.

Thank you 💛

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

Propheticus — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 19:52:30 GMT

It would help very much if you could search by catalogue number.

Lots of classical music is on Spotify, but hard to find because naming/titles do not match.

example:

catalogue ID ODE 1094-5

On Spotify it's called "Poulenc, Saint-Saëns & Barber: Works for Organ & Orchestra ". This is not a title you find in the label Ondine's catalogue nor on online music databases like Discogs.

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

Taylith — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 08:49:53 GMT

If that proves helpful,then maybe it's the way to go. If many people think so,then it could be in the ideas board to make it easy to search by catalogue number.
I have to say though, the names should be working just fine,I don't know why the search results behave like that.
We apologize.

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

Propheticus — Fri, 08 Apr 2022 09:35:22 GMT

Non of the names of the pieces on this collection / album work well to find it. Using all of them combined "Camille Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3 "Organ", Francis Poulenc Organ Concerto, Samuel Barber Toccata Festiva" (also without composers) results in nothing useful.

Searching then for a part e.g. "Camille Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3" results in a long list of albums/renditions, but not this one.

The best way to find it in the end turned out to be combining the performing artists/conductor like "Olivier Latry ,The Philadelphia Orchestra, Christoph Eschenbach". This combination is unique enough to identify this work.

This is just an example, but there's often so many renditions of classical pieces by different combinations of orchestras, soloists and conductors that finding a specific one is difficult in Spotify.

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

caburdick — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 21:39:45 GMT

I want to revive this topic, as it is quite frustrating to search for a specific recording (say, for example, the recording of Haydn Symphony no. 3 by the Basel Chamber Orchestra with Giovanni Antonini on the album "Haydn 2032, Vol. 6: Lamentatione") and have a 135 albums come up in the album search for "haydn symphony 3 antonini" before the album containing the only recording of this work involving that conductor. Some of the other albums contain recordings of Haydn's symphony no. 3, but many contain other non-symphony works by Haydn, symphonies no. 3 by non-Haydn composers, and string quartets and piano sonatas and so on and so forth. Oddly enough, adding "no" to the search prompt (haydn symphony no 3 antonini" brings up the album. It is easier to remember the name of the piece and the performers than album titles for a lot of this stuff, and I wish spotify would figure out how to recognize specific requests for these types of things.

Re: Strange and annoying results in classical music searches

RIPears — Fri, 01 Aug 2025 11:56:47 GMT

It’s gotten worse in the last few months. In the past, searching for a composer would return albums of that composer’s music (for instance, searching for ‘’Bach” would return different recordings of his Goldberg variations, orchestral suites, cantatas etc. Now, searching for a composer results in dozens upon dozens of ‘compilation’ albums like ‘relaxing classical music’ which contain one or two tracks by that composers. Spotify is prioritising mood-based search results catering to the lowest common denominator. Please fix this or I will stop paying my money.