iTunes 11.0.2: How to Activate the New “Composers View”
Apple has released iTunes 11.0.2, an incremental update to the latest version of iTunes, and states that:
This update adds a new Composers view for music…
Interestingly, it took a while to find where this new view is. A “view” is a way of viewing your media files, and you select views by clicking in the navigation bar above the content section of your window. Seeing nothing about Composers there, I went in search of more information. Several web sites mentioned displaying the Composer column in Songs view, and sorting that way (and one Twitter follower told me that’s what it was), but that has been in iTunes for donkey’s years.
It turns out that while Apple added this new view, it’s turned off by default. To activate it, go to the General preferences, and check Show Composers in the View section.
It’s odd that Apple would announce something new, yet have it disabled by default, but if you’ve been scratching your head trying to find this feature, it’s just a few clicks away.
Composers view is quite stark compared to the other views in iTunes 11. There is no album art next to the composers’ names, and there is no All Composers entry at the top, as there is All Artists and All Albums, for example. Just a long list of names. As if Apple didn’t think that composers’ names were worth illustrating, in the way they illustrate other content lists in iTunes.
In any case, it’s good to see that Apple is making a small concession to classical music fans. Viewing music by composer is one way I choose which classical music I want to listen to.
Posted: 2/20/2013 by kirk | Filed under: Apple & Mac OS X, iPod & iTunes | Tags: iTunes | 6 Comments »
Very strange to switch it off, and not especially helpful, certainly not at this late stage in iTunes’ development.
As a classical music lover I’ve been using the database fields quite differently for years: Composer sits in the Artist field, Work sits in the Album field and Movement sits in the Song field. Artist details are relegated to the Composer field, and CD/album information sits in Grouping, since that’s what an album is: a grouping of pieces. With this strategy the built-in hierarchy of the iTunes database (drawn from pop music) can be correctly mapped to the natural hierarchy of classical music, including in the way my music files are organised in the Finder (i.e. folders for Composers, with subfolders for Works).
Apple has effectively hidden the Composers field all these years, making it all but useless. For example, you could never view composer information while playing songs on an iPod. So even if I had wanted to use the iTunes database fields as labelled, it would never have been practical. Too late now, I think.
I do the same thing for the composer in the artist field, but I still use the Album tag for either works or albums. I find it a bit easier, and more flexible on an iOS device.
Agreed. A flexible approach to the Album tag based on listening habits and repertoire, makes special sense in classical music.
For example, an album containing a recital (especially a live recording) almost begs to remain intact.
On the other hand an opera may be divided into acts (or groups of acts) which do not necessarily correspond to the original CD arrangement, unless one wishes to follow the booklet’s libretto based on CD track numbers. I keep Bach cantatas as separate albums, but would not imagine separating organ chorale preludes.
And yes, composer name (and even birth/death years if desired) still makes sense in the Artist tag. Thanks to your encouraging articles, Kirk, many classical music lovers, including myself, moved their collections to iTunes years ago. Never regretted.
You can also right click on the column browser or on the track list headers and turn on the Composer view there.
Nope, that’s not Composers view. That’s displaying a Composer column, which you’ve been able to do since, dunno, iTunes 1. Read what I wrote.
It is great to have ‘Composers view’ back. I for one did give feedback to Apple when it went missing.
It does have some quirks. I am not sure what the default order of display is but you can bring up (with command-j) view options. However Sort albums by ‘Title’ seems to sort them by Artist. I found sort by ‘Rating’ (I don’t use the ratings) did actually sort by Title.
Composers have also reappeared in the iTunes store