Additional composer metadata

[goblin2k3 6]

Hello,

first thing: I really like that emby generally supports the composer tag. The implementation seems a little bit bare bones IMO and should be expanded.

1. It should be possible to edit the composer tag with the metadata editor. This would also allow adding composers to music videos which is not the case at the moment.
2. Emby should read out a tag containing the Musicbrainz ID of a composer so the romantic composer "Peter Cornelius" is not mixed up with the Schlager singer of the same name. How about "musicbrainz_composerid"?
3. It should be possible to set an "album composer" so a complete recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is not treated the same way as some Christmas CD containing a two minutes chorale setting by him. Reading out tags named "albumcomposer" and "musicbrainz_albumcomposerid" would make sense.

Thanks for reading.

[user24 313]

Hi, here's some thoughts (may or may not be helpful?)...

2 hours ago, goblin2k3 said:

It should be possible to edit the composer tag with the metadata editor. This would also allow adding composers to music videos which is not the case at the moment.

Have you looked at: Edit Metadata > People > Name + Type (Composer) for adding Composers to Music Videos? I don't know how well this may or may not coincide with Composers in music libraries - but perhaps worth a look to see what is possible?

2 hours ago, goblin2k3 said:

Emby should read out a tag containing the Musicbrainz ID of a composer so the romantic composer "Peter Cornelius" is not mixed up with the Schlager singer of the same name. How about "musicbrainz_composerid"?

These two people already have different MBIDs in MusicBrainz so you should be able to separate them as needed:

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/d329a84d-c7af-458d-a037-405f52ca68a5/details

https://musicbrainz.org/artist/42f6070f-febb-4bdb-af08-9a826d3803aa/details

If you didn't have this info in your embedded tags when importing into Emby, then Emby may have 'guessed' and assigned the wrong ID? 

Also (AFAIK) there is no such tag as a musicbrainz_composerid. I think MBIDs are the same format for all artists, whether they’re composers or performers. (but more Artist and Composer separation is definitely worthwhile - however it is done)

2 hours ago, goblin2k3 said:

It should be possible to set an "album composer" so a complete recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is not treated the same way as some Christmas CD containing a two minutes chorale setting by him. Reading out tags named "albumcomposer" and "musicbrainz_albumcomposerid" would make sense.

This sorta makes sense, but I don't think an "albumcomposer" type of tag actually exists as any standard anywhere??? What you could do is experiment with the Album Artist tags and come up with a system that works for you. This is a multi-field in Emby so you can assign more than one Album Artist to an individual album (e.g. a performer Album Artist and a composer Album Artist), if you want to. So you are essentially making your own Album Composer assignment which should then appear under "Albums" on the Composer detail page. Assigning more than one Album Artist is a really good way of cross-referencing your music library.

There's possibly other things you could try with Tags and Collections if any of the above doesn't help.

Good luck with getting it all sorted out. Cheers!

Edited August 9, 2025 by user24

[goblin2k3 6]

Thank you for your reply.

2 hours ago, user24 said:

Have you looked at: Edit Metadata > People > Name + Type (Composer) for adding Composers to Music Videos? I don't know how well this may or may not coincide with Composers in music libraries - but perhaps worth a look to see what is possible?

That does not help, as "People" and "Artists" are obviously stored in different tables of the database (a kinda silly design choice if you ask me, as there are actors who are also singers, classical composers who have written movie soundtracks etc.)

2 hours ago, user24 said:

f you didn't have this info in your embedded tags when importing into Emby, then Emby may have 'guessed' and assigned the wrong ID? 

I know it's possible to correct the Musicbrainz ID in the artist metadata, which would change it for all "connected" songs. However it would be better, if you could change it directly for a specific song, as there are as a matter of fact composers sharing the same name (Johann Strauss, for example).

2 hours ago, user24 said:

This sorta makes sense, but I don't think an "albumcomposer" type of tag actually exists as any standard anywhere??? What you could do is experiment with the Album Artist tags and come up with a system that works for you. This is a multi-field in Emby so you can assign more than one Album Artist to an individual album (e.g. a performer Album Artist and a composer Album Artist), if you want to. So you are essentially making your own Album Composer assignment which should then appear under "Albums" on the Composer detail page. Assigning more than one Album Artist is a really good way of cross-referencing your music library.

In my opinion, both artist fields should be reserved for performers. Also, some classical productions already come with a lot of album artists (soloists, choir, orchestra, conductor), there is really no need to expand it even more, when you can just have a different field for a completely different role:

Of course "albumcomposer" is not a standard ID 3 tag, but a lot of tags used by Musicbrainz Picard (like artistsort, performer, musicbrainz_artistid) aren't either. They are added, because it makes sense adding them.