I would like to offer, regarding the handling of classical music tracks, a somewhat disruptive reflection —if I may use today’s pompous terminology— and I apologize in advance if it seems too bold or presumptuous. But considering that ncmpcpp is the most advanced and capable player, it is the one best suited to integrate this kind of feature.

Explanation

Let me begin by explaining. I’ve noticed that, generally speaking, there are two major discographic trends:

1. The first trend—generally overrepresented in pop music—follows a classification system based on the format Artist—Album—Track (AAT).
2. Then there’s the second trend, probably seen as too niche due to its representation in classical music, which follows a classification format of Composer—Work—Performer—Movement (CWPM).

The AAT trend is straightforward and well understood, so I won’t elaborate much on that. For AAT, a track like “Two of Us” by The Beatles from the album Let It Be would be presented as:

The Beatles / Let It Be / Two of Us

On the other hand, in the CWPM approach, the composer is just as important—if not more so—than the performer. So for Les Indes galantes conducted by William Christie, it would be represented as:

Jean-Philippe Rameau / Les Indes galantes / William Christie / Ouverture
What’s important in the CWPM approach —and sadly not yet supported by ncmpcpp— is that for the same piece by the same composer, the user would like to be able to see all the different performers they have in their collection before choosing, for example, whether they prefer William Christie's or Philippe Herreweghe’s interpretation of Les Indes galantes.

What I Currently Do

To be fully transparent, what I currently do to work around this is a somewhat dirty hack. I add the composer’s name in parentheses after the work’s name in the ALBUM tag. But this is improper, because a given recording belongs both to an album (created by the performer) and a work (created by the composer)—two distinct things.

A performer might release a compilation album mixing works by various composers (e.g., two Mozart pieces, one by Prokofiev, three by Smetana), but the piece still belongs to its original work regardless. In the end, using the name of the work in place of the album title just to have it show up under the “album” column ends up creating a lot of confusion.

Recommendations

After giving it considerable thought for some time, I humbly believe the best solution would be a selective separation into three or four columns, depending on the artist or track.

To do this, we could introduce a CLASSIFICATION_SCHEME tag, which ncmpcpp would check. If this tag contains artist-album-track, then the current three-column separation in ncmpcpp would apply. But if the tag contains composer-work-performer-movement, then ncmpcpp would display a four-pane view for entries classified this way.

Additional Talk

To be honest, I had been thinking about this feature for quite a while but was hesitant to bring it up, fearing it might seem too novel or too much of a departure from the existing system. That was until I learned that Apple, in launching its classical music-focused platform, did not hesitate to adopt a very similar approach.