About the search function / search tips

Quick search ("Search catalogue"):

This is our main search engine. Using it, you will be able to find a specific title by entering an album / work / track title, names of artists / composers involved, or attributes such as genre, period or instrument, as well as the BIS catalogue number (please observe our revised numbering system *).

The quick search has an auto-complete feature that suggests 10 matching albums as you are writing, presenting them in a drop-down list by relevance. "bee" shows the first albums featuring works with the word 'bee' in the title - an added "t" takes you to Beethoven's music.
At this point, you can select an album in the drop-down list, but you can also arrive at a new page by pressing Enter. Here the full results are ordered by release date, with the most recent first. The search term must be a complete word that exists in the catalogue: "beet" followed by Enter will not result in a list.

If you are trying to find a specific BIS album, the quickest way is to enter exact search terms to make it appear in the drop-down list and open it directly from there. In comparison, going via the full listing puts a stronger focus on what's new, e.g. by a certain artist / composer or in a certain genre.
You can also enter numerals in the search field. A plain number will most often result in the album with the corresponding catalogue number appearing first in the drop-down list. But the number may also be interpreted as a composition year or an opus or Köchel number. In order to find an album through its catalogue number, the most efficient way is therefore to write 'BIS-' followed by the number in question.

You can write more than one search term into the field. For example, "mozart" + "622" will show you our recordings of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto. But as the entire data base is consulted for each separate search term, "brahms" + "intermezzo" will for example give results of any disc featuring Brahms and intermezzo - even if the intermezzo is by another composer (as on BIS-77). For more general browsing, even search terms as vague as "romantic" + "piano" may produce interesting results.

Categories:

You can also browse our catalogue through the indexes of composers, solo artists & choirs, instrumental ensembles / orchestras and conductors.
There is a search function on each of these pages, too. It is possible to search using either given name or surname, and you don't even have to enter a complete name in order to get results. Please note that as the names of choirs and instrumental ensembles are generally treated as a single entity, you need to enter the first letters of such names in order to find them through the relevant index - or resort to the quick search.

In both search engines, results containing special characters (e.g. ä, ø, ú) will appear even if the search term is entered using standard, international characters (such as a, o, u).

* Previously, our catalogue numbers included an indication of the format (e.g. CD, SACD etc) immediately before the actual numeral, viz. BIS-CD-1234. Since 2012 the format description is placed at the end of the catalogue number – BIS-1234 CD – and is no longer necessary in order to identify the title. ‘BIS-’ followed by the actual number is therefore a sufficient search term in order to pinpoint a certain title on this web site. (Please note that the old catalogue numbers will still appear in the artworks of discs manufactured before 2012.)

Our old numbering system also allowed for the possibility of double numbers, for instance BIS-CD-1323/24. This would indicate a multi-disc title sold, in this specific case, for the price of two single discs. We have now discontinued this practice and the old double numbers have been revised so that only the first disc number is retained: BIS-CD-1323/24 has become BIS-1323 CD. (The one exception to this is the former BIS-CD-835/37, which now has the catalogue number BIS-83537 CD.)