Roll Over Beethoven

Roll Over Beethoven

I know the idea of the composer (or songwriter) and the performer being two separate but equally important people is complex for those outside the music world, but any service that bothers to offer music without taking these elements into account is a joke.

Written By

Jean Cook

NewMusicBox would like to offer a warm welcome to new Chatter contributor Jean Cook, a musician, producer, and co-founder of Anti-Social Music. She spends most of her days working for Future of Music Coalition, a national non-profit education, research, and advocacy organization that identifies, examines, interprets, and translates the challenging issues at the intersection of music, law, technology, and policy. —MS

Jean Cook

I met a radio DJ a few months ago who, hearing I was a violinist, recommended I check out Roby Lakatos’s album Klezmer Karma. I bought the CD and listened to it, and then wanted to recommend back that he listen to a good version of Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen—a well known violin showpiece that’s got lots of bells and whistles and is super impressive, especially when played by the right person.

I don’t have a favorite version of this piece, but I figure most professional violinists have probably learned it at some point. Since I want to recommend a good version, I dig around to see who’s actually recorded it. A web search doesn’t really help, so I go to a well-known online music service that’s bound to have a few versions to look through.

After a few false starts (three Pablo de Sarasates, each with a different set of tracks attributed to them), they appear to have four versions of this piece.


Unfortunately, I can’t tell who plays on any of these versions. So I click on album names to see if they list performers anywhere.


Twenty minutes after I first started looking, I’m squinting at album art trying to figure out who the main artist is on different versions of Zigeunerweisen. (And what’s this “IV: Andante” crap? If they didn’t include the album art, how are you supposed to know that’s Symphony Espagnole?)

This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened to me (or you I’m sure). Music sites that tell you Beethoven is the performer, that “Allegro” is the name of the piece, that the piano soloist might be the Berlin Philharmonic. I find these experiences endlessly frustrating. I don’t understand how something so simple has to be so hard to figure out. (I take that back. I do understand. Believe me, I really, really do. But it still makes me crazy.)

I know the idea of the composer (or songwriter) and the performer being two separate but equally important people is complex for those outside the music world. And the idea that a soloist, conductor, or orchestra might all be equally important makes things a little more complicated than most folks can handle.

But hello, music services! These are essential elements to dealing with this music. You’re dissing entire genres here. Any service that bothers to offer music without taking these elements into account is a joke. Sorry dudes. I know it’s not easy doing what you do and that some music is weird. And you’ve probably figured out how to make millions off your service without giving a second thought to their metadata. But yeah, you make me sad.

To be honest, I normally would let something like this go. It’s a golden opportunity for an entrepreneur somewhere—eventually someone will figure it out. But I can’t shake this question: if they can’t figure out how to present the performer information in a reliable way, how on earth do people figure out how to appropriately pay the artists whose music they’re selling? Are the wacky data/reporting requirements of this music causing problems down the line?

Now I confess I’ve only used iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, Pandora (before they added classical), and Magnatune. I would love to hear about those who are doing it really right.