Uploading classical music

I can't find the discussion you had in June, so I don't know what you were told then, so we'll start from scratch.

iTunes will import from CD in the correct order, from the first to the last track on the CD, unless you specifically cause iTunes import procedure to do something else. Once you have uploaded the CD into your iTunes Library, iTunes can display the songs in various ways, so perhaps the problem lies in the way the list is being displayed. Of course, it may be that the tags for that particular track are incorrect, so you will need to check those too.

In your example, the Mahler piece, you say that it appears at the end of a different CD. At this point, you should think of albums, not CDs. It's an important detail because what you have done is "import albums", from CD. Once in iTunes, the music is still an album and one of many ways of looking at and playing that music is "as an album". So have you looked at these tracks as an album, preferably in the Albums view? If not, I suggest you do so now, to see if the album that you imported from CD is still listed as an album in iTunes.

Here is an album of mine, using the Albums view:

As you will notice, the three Brandenburg concertos are separated from one another by a heading, naming the concerto. This list is as it was on the CD I imported from and if I start playing track 1, the album will play from 1 through to 9 in the correct order.

However, if I now look in the Songs view, at the same album, this is how it is displayed:

In reverse order!

If I start playing track 1, the player will stop at the end of that track. Why? Because it is the last one in this list, therefore there is nothing after it that can be played. But why is the list in reverse order? (That's an easy one.) My Songs view is currently sorting by (most recent) Date Added column. All I need to do is flip the sorting and that list will be in correct track order.

As I type this, it occurs to me that the specific album you are talking about might be a two-CD set. Is that the case? Whether it is or not, now is the time to check and see if every track on the album has the Track Number tag filled in and - if it is part of a two-CD set, whether the Disc x of x tag is completed. (It quite often isn't.)

Let's look at the first track on the album shown above;

Notice that both the track number and the Disc x of x tags are present.

• if this is a single-CD album, the disc x of x will almost certainly not be filled in, but that's okay. It will not present any problem
• if this is a multi-CD album and the disc number is not filled in for each track, then it is possible for tracks to be listed in the wrong order

So, on your Mahler piece, what do you find?

• is the track number tag filled in?
• is the track from a multi-CD album?
  • if it is, is the disc number tag filled in for every track on that album
• note also, the Work Name and Movement x of x tags (at the top of the details). In my case they are not filled in, but if you are having issues, could it be because those tags have not been completed?

There is a lot of information here, and quite a lot for you to check. However, there may be more to check before you have solved this, so let us know how you get on and we can proceed from there.

If you still have problems, which view are you using to look at this album? Can you provide screenshots? That may help us to identify what needs to be corrected.

One particular problem when looking at an artist list is if the album has featured artists on certain songs.

Study the screenshot below. I know it's not classical music, but the principal is the same. Let's consider an album by the artist Nelly Furtado:

I'm using the Songs view (1.) and looking at all Genres (2.) and all Artists (3.). Then, under the Album column, I'm looking at one album, Loose (4.).

In box 5., there are 13 songs, all on that one album.

Now look at what happens if I look at the same album in the Artists View (6. below). It's on the left, just above the Songs view:

Using the Artists View (6.) and then looking at Nelly Furtado (7.), notice that the album Loose (in box 8.) now has just nine songs, not the thirteen we saw before. Misleadingly, there is still something at the bottom of the window that says 13 items, as it did in the previous screenshot. You need to ignore that for now.

So, if I played the album Loose, by using the Artists' View, four songs would not be played. But in the Songs view, because I'm looking at the album under a heading of all genres, by all artists, I see and can play all thirteen songs.

The reason for this discrepancy is the featured artists that appear on some, but not all of the songs on Nelly's album Loose. In the first screenshot, you will notice the featured artists listed under Artist in box 5. But in the second screenshot, look under the artist Nelly Furtado that I marked as 7. Notice the additional listing, for Nelly Furtado Feat. Attitude, as well as another two Nelly-with-featured-artist. This is not a bug in iTunes. iTunes is doing exactly what it should be doing, listing each "artist" separately. And of course, the artist "Nelly Furtado" is not the same as the artist "Nelly Furtado Feat. Attitude".

So perhaps this, or something very similar (disc x of x for example) , is what you are seeing. That's way I suggested that you think of albums, not CDs, now that you have imported the music into iTunes (from the CD).

Often, even with classical music, there is a way to solve these issues. For example, disc x of x when there are multiple discs that make up one album. The Work and Movement tags can be used for classical music.

To solve the issue with my Nelly Furtado album, all I need to do is fill in the Album Artist field. This field is also useful for any compilation album (that is, where each track is by a different artist):

Now, under the Artists view, look what we see:

I realise that the last screenshot in my previous post is not that clear. But hopefully, you get the picture (pun intended).

What I didn't explain fully in that post is about compilation albums.

If you have a Various Artists compilation album (either a pop or a classical album, it doesn't matter), in order to keep all the tracks together as one album , you need to fill in the Album Artist tag (or field) with Various Artists and tick the box named compilation:

That keeps the tracks together on an iPod as well.

A lot more information, I know. Take the time to re-read it, that may help put all the information into place for you.

Glad you're making progress.