Yes, a perfect description of this issue. 
The logic of the discography on an artistâs page is such that an album would not appear twice. If it is listed under ´main albums´ or ´appearances´, it will not appear a second time under ´composed by´.
My understanding is that the composer-performers in question are correctly recognized as performers or main artists, with the album rightfully not listed under ´composed by´. The main problem seemingly is that ´main albums´ or ´appearances´ sections are missing. Can only make a wild guess, why is that so: maybe to prevent albums which should be filed under ´composed by´ coming in with flawed metadata, i.e. the composer wrongly tagged as main artist, for composers who are not known to having ever released albums as a performer (because it is not known, or they died before albums have ever been released).
I suggest we create a list of affected composer-performers, and inform roon team that these should be handled as contemporary composer-performers with main albums being shown. This should solve the issue IMHO.
Zero problems with Arvo Pärt and this album despite from him being (wrongfully) tagged as a main artist:
´Hit and miss´ in the sense that a composer is either always granted performer sections, or never? Thatâs what I have observed, and there should be a clear fix on roon´s template side. Or that the situation can be unpredictable with different albums of one and the same composer? Have never witnessed that tbh.
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Thanks. I appreciate your input on what may be going on here.
Regarding the Arvo Part album I mentioned, I noticed your version is from Qobuz. Mine is a rip from a CD in my disc collection.
I added the Qobuz version to my library, and like yours, it displays properly under Arvo Part. Perhaps thereâs a difference in the metadata on my CD rip thatâs causing the issue. Iâll compare the two and see if I need to make corrections to my CD rip.
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Suggest to remove all tags and credits assigning Arvo Pärt as main artist, album artist, performer or anything else than composer. Both in the tag editor and in roon. If you see any suspicious data in the credit list of the album, remove credits from both the album and all tracks.
Had similar cases with other composers, like Benjamin Britten who was credited as ´Liner Notes´ which prevented him from being recognized as the composer.
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Maybe the main artist or other tags being picked up from Qobuz is actually what is forcing the desired listing behaviour? I have just double checked Jennnifer Higdon. I have several local albums all of which I can filter from the main album screen as it is a simple text string search on my album titles. But no less than 4 of these local albums are missing from both her overview and her discography, although in the discography section roon is picking up the Qobuz versions (not my local versions):
I wasnât particularly talking about cases where there are separate composer/performer sections. I donât think the OP was either. I donât know what criteria roon is using. Very unpredictable. So for example, I have no separate performer/composer sections for Philip Glass although he was both a prolific composer and performer. On the other hand, Jennifer Higdon only has very few performance recordings which are very difficult to find but she gets a large separate composition section. I cannot see what the pattern is.
I donât find it difficult to find contrary examples with contemporary Classical music, some quite striking. For example, I have at least 56 Olivier Messiaen albums according to a string search in the main albums screen. This is a combination of local and Qobuz albums:
But in Messiaenâs discography only 21 albums are showing of which only 3 are library versions. This seems to be an example where only performer albums are being shown rather than composer albums of this major contemporary composer. There are no separate composer/performer sections. I donât think this is a question of spurious tags like âliner notesâ or other obvious things like setting the classical composer switch. I have done several rounds of tag clean-ups, although you never know as roon seems to be near constantly updating tags in background.
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Understood. My suspicion is, the disappearing albums have something to do with this, because they do appear for all composers I have seen who were granted a ´Main albums´ section.
Can only make a wild guess, but it might have to do with composers either being registered both as composers AND performers with own releases in Xperi/Allmusic database, or not. If not, then only ´Composed by´ will appear and albums with performer/main artist credits might disappear. Just my theory, maybe it was an attempt to not mix up composers with main artists and performers, if the former were wrongly tagged as the latter (which is a very very common issue). As we do not know the underlying data, the result looks like a random bug, I agree.
Have a wild guess why is that so: Jennifer Bigdon seemingly is credited for things like ´Liner Notes´ or ´Production´ on exactly all of the missing albums. For unknown reason, this might be bringing roon to not show them in ´Composed by´ section, or not show them at all, if the composer in general is not granted a ´Main albums´ or ´Appearances´ section - let us call it Morbus Rachmaninov ;-))
Try to remove the ´Liner Notes´ or ´Production´ credits from the album in roon, please. Had several albums with compositions by Benjamin Britten with the very same problem, and it helped.
Where is James Newby´s recital album ´I wonder as I wander´ with Britten songs?
Ah, he is credited as arranger and for transcription as well, so we remove this from the whole album until he is a composer, and solely a composer:
Voilà , the album appears under ´Composed by´:
Really curious, if removing the ´Linear notes´ or ´Production´ credits will do the job in your case. Please report, if you find the time to try. Will dive into Messiaen later.
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I have come across this before, also with Britten. I regularly remove production credits. But unfortunately this is not the case with the examples I have given. or the OPâs original Rachmaninov case. After removing production credits there is still an issue and has been for a very long time. This is ongoing for maybe 10 years now.
Several years ago roon did at least partially address this issue but it seemed to be in relation to a few specific examples like Britten and Bernstein or at least that was how the dialogue was framed at the time.
Just to be clear, removing production credits does help in some cases. But we are primarily taking about contemporary composer/performers where multiple creative credits such as performer/composer/artist/soloist/arranger/orchestrator/conductor is the norm for working musicians just the same as it was for their Bach, Mozart and Beethoven forbears.
I have double checked Messiaen and there are separate sections (I didnât scroll properly). So 3+43=46 albums are showing when I am expecting 56, so itâs not as bad as I thought but still, at least 10 are missing.
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Okay, sorry. Was worth a try.
Absolutely agree. Unfortunately, general quality of metadata is so bad, particularly when it comes to classical composers being wrongly assigned as main artists or performers for a zillion of albums, that a good frontend like roon will always pose a compromise what is displayed and what not. Donât get me wrong, having local albums which donât be showing up where they are meant to be, is highly frustrating, and if the issue is to.be addressed, I wholeheartedly welcome that.
That said, there were days I was using Tidal w/ roon, bringing (compared to Qobuz) in a new dimension of metagarbage and unwanted albums/recordings, rendering the Opus listings, composition pages and recordings assigned to a composition, basically useless for me. Since then I feel way more annoyed by additional, unwanted stuff, like I have been reporting it recently with some pop/rock artists. So I like the approach of reduced discographies, basic listings and recommendations to a minimum of what has solid metadata. Even if some local albums fall over the cliff and become invisible. I can live with that, if there is a possibility to find them this or that way (via album overview or whatever). Fully respect other users coming to a completely different conclusion.
Tried to replicate your problem, and while all my local albums are listed (my Messiaen collection is not as big), one (âVingt regardsâ by Yvonne Loriod) was hidden. Again removed credits such as ´Liner Notes´ for Messiaen, ĂŠt voilĂ :
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My Loriod of âDes Canyons . . .â shows but by Loriod of âVingt Regards . . .â (same Qobuz âapexâ release as yours I think) does not:
As it happens Messiaen does get a production credit on the Vingt Regards . . . but not for âliner notesâ. Itâs for ârecording supervisionâ:
So I removed it but it made no difference so I put it back. The bigger point here is that Yvonne Loriod was arguably the most important interpreter of Messiaenâs piano work. She was also Messiaenâs second wife. That Messiaen supervised this particular recording of the Vingt Regards . . . by his wife is by far the most interesting thing about this recording and is the whole point of roon for me. So at a certain point hacking tags to get basic navigation functionality to work is throwing the roon baby out with the foobar water and is missing the whole point.
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Are you sure you have removed the non-composer credits from both all the tracks and the album? As soon as I remove both ´Liner Notes´ and `Recording supervision´ for Messiaen, I get the following result:
Note that this is a local version, not Qobuz. If it does not work with your version, maybe you have some local tags assigned to the files which make the credits kinda sticky?
Fully understand your point about a specific interpretation and importance thereof. In the best of all possible worlds (to quote Bernstein), every single local album should show up in the composer´s discography. If metadata situation is flawed to a degree making a perfect frontend anyways impossible, living with imperfections also sometimes means choosing the right search tool. Via performer´s page, recording list on the composition page, album overview with composer focus or text query - all work in this case, so I personally can live with that.
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Yes You are right. I didnât remove âliner notesâ at both the track and album levels. Now it works for this particular case. It is not necessary to remove ârecording supervisionâ so the behaviour must be sensitive to certain production credits. I am aware of the liner notes trick and regularly remove that credit on a case by case basis but unless there is a way of batch removing composer liner note credits from Qobuz favorites it is way too late for any systematic solution for me. I have never experimented systematically either so I donât know what other production credits consistently produce this behaviour. I was surprised (but pleased) that ârecording supervisionâ doesnât appear to have an effect on my library.
It certainly helps but I still come across examples with no liner note credits all the time. For example, the OPâs original Rachmaninov example. I have no interest in liner note credits so removing them is not an issue but I listen to a lot of Classical electronic music and Cross-Over electronic where production credits are part of the creative process and I do miss them if I remove them. So outside core Classical repertoire I often find navigating roon very hit and miss. I would prefer not to play the plusses and minuses of tagging strategies off each other depending on genre but I donât see this ever being fixed.
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This brings up a good point. While I can use a tag editor (ie Mp3tag) for my local files, editing Qobuz titles must be done via Roon, which is very tedious and time consuming to edit not only the album info, but info for each track as well, with no assurance that it will actually work to solve the issue (ie my original Rachmaninoff example). 
I cleaned up the tags on my local copy, removing Arvo Part as Artist and Album Artist since he is not the artist/album artist on this album. Now it displays properly under Arvo Part as the composer.
However, no matter what I do with the Rachmaninoff album, it will not display properly under Rachmaninoff as the composer. Perhaps if there was a way to prevent Roon from adding additional credits that do not appear the the fileâs metadate, it might work. But I donât see how to make Roon do this for just this album. Still, the idea of removing correct metadata (ie removing Rachmaninoff as the artist when it is him performing) just to try to appease Roon really bugs me. Iâm at the point of giving up on this one. Itâs not worth all this hassle. 
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Kind of remembered what had been my initial workaround for these albums. The trick requires 2 editing steps, i.e. removing the composer-performer from the non-composer credits of the album AND the non-composer credits of all the tracks on the album.
Step 1 (Mark and edit tracks, make sure all tracks are marked):
Step 2, edit the credits of the album, remove all but ´Composer´:
Interestingly, primary artist and album artist can be left untouched, they donât interfere in this case. The album will appear under ´composed by´ section as a result:
Admittingly weird logic and a lot of work, and it took me quite some time to figure that out. I donât really blame roon for this glitch, it is weird metadata plus a pretty implausible scenario of a composer who had died in the 1940s, playing the piano on a recording made in 1998.
Removing Tovarish Rachmaninov in certain roles such as ´arranger´ or ´piano´ does not bother me that much, as he still is recognized as composer, main artist and album artist.
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PS: If this one ´A window in time´ is the album in question, it works with my roon and the album being sourced from Qobuz:
Does it work with your local copy as well? Would love to know..
That is the album in question. Doesnât work for me or the OP. I have a Qobuz version as well. I donât see any production credits that may explain it.
Could you please check for Rachmaninov´s roles in the credits and make a screenshot? I have a suspicion, some credit has survived, preventing my trick from working. It should look like this, solely ´Composer´ and no entry in the production section:
If one other credit than ´composer´ has survived, may it be ´Primary artist´ for the album OR for the tracks, it would not work like with your Ormandy/Stokowski album here:
Thank you for the detailed steps. That really helped.
I tried it with my local copy of âA Window in Timeâ. If I remove all Rachmaninoff credits except for Composer, it will show under Rachmaninoffâs composer page. However, if I leave him as Artist, or Primary Artist, or Album Artist, or anything else besides Composer, it will not show.
You mentioned this in your other example (Rachmaninov Plays Rachmaninov):
This doesnât seem to be the case for âA Window in Timeâ. As I mentioned, on this album if Rachmaninoff has any other credit in addition to Composer, the album will not show.
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To clarify things: I did not mean a credit ´Primary artist´, in this case you are absolutely right. I meant the album artist link and name under the album title, which can be left unchanged, at least with my Qobuz version.
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Thanks for the clarification.
So, whatâs the difference between what Album Editor shows and what is shown when looking at the album credits? I see Rachmaninoff listed in Primary Artist Links and Album Artist in the Album Editor, but in the album credits Rachmaninoff is just credited as a Composer.
(My brain hurts⌠
)