September 10, 2026
Every composer, on the web
Opus is built around a simple loop: hear something, log it, let the journal point you somewhere new. That loop starts with search, and for a while, search had a weakness. The catalog of composers and works came from a public service that sometimes went down, and when it did, typing a composer's name in Opus got you an error instead of an answer.
We fixed that the thorough way. The whole catalog now lives on our own servers: more than 220 composers, more than 25,000 works, and every portrait. And since we were bringing the catalog home anyway, we put it where everyone can see it.
Browse the catalog
There's a new corner of this site: the composer index. Every composer in Opus, grouped by era from the Medieval period to the 21st century, each with a page of their own.
A composer's page holds the portrait, the dates, and the complete list of their works, organized by genre. The Beethoven page runs 344 works deep. Mozart and Bach are there, and so are the composers you meet later: Hildegard von Bingen, Clara Schumann, Arvo Pärt.
It's a reference, plain and fast. Use it to answer a question, to pick your next listen, or to wander.
Search that stays up
In the app, Opus 1.7 points search at the new catalog. You'll notice it three ways:
It's always there. Composer and work search no longer depends on anyone else's servers. If the site is up, search is up.
Accents work. Searching Dvořák with the accents, or dvorak without them, finds the same composer. Before this release, accented searches failed outright.
No more doubles. A bug that could show the same composer several times in search results is fixed.
Nothing else about logging changes. Your journal, your ratings, and your notes stay on your device and in your private iCloud, same as always.
Thank you, Open Opus
The catalog data comes from Open Opus, a volunteer project that maintains classical music metadata and gives it away in the public domain. Opus relied on their API from its first day, and the new catalog began as a snapshot of their work. Projects like that are quiet infrastructure for a whole ecosystem of music apps, and this one is grateful.
Owning the catalog also means we can grow it. The first two additions are already in: Hildegard von Bingen and Clara Schumann, both long overdue. If a composer you log is missing, tell us.
How to get it
The composer pages are live now, no app required. For the search improvements, update to Opus 1.7 on the App Store, then go look up the composer whose name you could never quite spell.
Get the update.
Opus is free on the App Store.
