There are a number of other threads -- here are a few -- discussing the fact that the Plex model, which works great for pop music and most video, is not as well adapted to other forms of music, especially classical music.
As someone who's spent a lot of time dealing with this in my personal collection, and has some experience dealing with classical music metadata on other sites, I wanted to propose a possible solution and get others' reactions to it. Basically, my proposal is to create separate Plex media types for pop and classical music, just as there are separate media types for movies and TV shows. This may seem drastic, but it is actually the simplest solution for developers and users.
Right now, Plex recognizes that movies and TV shows are different types of file that need different types of metadata. This is reflected in the file hierarchy, the filename, and the interface.
If Plex didn't support TV content with its own content type and interface, we'd have to kluge something together, by including season and episode data in some other field--just like we do right now for classical music. Plex solved this problem simply and elegantly by separating the two types of video content; Plex can do the same for music.
Here is my proposal:
Create a separate content type for classical music; make this one of the choices when creating a new library. Leave the current Music content type exactly as it is now, for those users for whom it works well.
Allow user agents to recognize and fill in an additional metadata field: Composer. This field is already filled in by some databases and therefore may not even require new agents; if it isn't already filled in, it can be filled in by the user, or you can leave it to the user community to create an agent to support it.
When presenting classical libraries to the user, have a client present it in a hierarchy of: Composer, then Album. Artist information, which is rarely a useful way to sort classical music, is skipped in favor of Composer.
For example: the top level directory might look like this:
Bach, J.S.
Beethoven, Ludvig van
- Brahms, Johannes
The Bach directory might look like this:
Bach: Coffee Cantata, Amor Artis Chorale [album]
Bach: Mass in B Minor, Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra [album]
- Bach: Well-Tempered Klavier, Glenn Gould
- Bach: Well-Tempered Klavier, Keith Jarrett
This would only require supporting one additional metadata tag. It would not be perfect, but it would, sadly, immediately make Plex one of the best solutions on the market for serving classical music files.
Splitting out classical from pop would allow the developers to roll out and develop this new feature without causing any problems for those users who only care about pop music. But it would be a huge help to a large and passionate community of users who are currently out at sea.