Apple Music Classical: 15 Things You Need to Know About the New App

[Surf Monkey]

This is good because searching for so-called “serious” and “orchestral” material in Apple Music sucks.

But let’s face it. Search within ANY genre sucks on Apple Music. Search on Apple Music sucks period. So, although I’m excited for the separation and focus on “classical” I’m really hoping this experience filters over to the main Apple Music app and we finally get a meaningful search function on it.

Oh, and can we PLEASE get play counts to migrate across all devices in real time? We’ve been promised this for nearly a decade now and it simply doesn’t work. I have smart playlists that lay dormant waiting for Apple to implement this BASIC function. Why mention it? Because this kind of egregious behavior by Apple is all too common and that fact tempers my excitement for Apple Music Classical. Chances are it’ll be broken in some obvious and fundamental way, never to be updated and fixed. Just like Apple Music itself.

 

[Cyloncat]

Classical is a genre; it's really hard to be more specific than that. "Classical" generally refers to western art music, which comes with a lot of baggage dating back to the Middle Ages, but "classical music" in other cultures will have their own classical traditions. Compare to Indian classical music, which is nothing like western classical music.

What does make music "classical" is a mix of history, theory, structure, form, tradition, instrumentation, and more. Becoming a classical musician, either as a performer or composer, takes years of study and practice. Even "punk" classical (thinking of Schoenberg, P. D. Q. Bach, John Cage, or Terry Riley) requires immersion in western art music. The truly distinguishing features of classical music are its intellectual and emotional complexity, as well as the tangle of historical roots back to the twelfth century.

A specialized classical music app is necessary because dealing with all that history and tradition (and the rest) requires specialized search, metadata, and human experience. And perhaps none of that makes sense until you have actually dipped into classical music enough to find things that you like and (possibly even more important) things that you don't like. Everyone has opinions, and the more they know of classical music, the more opinions they will have.

And not once did I mention Mozart.

 

[cbsnbiker]

I'm dedicating Schubert's Unfinished Symphony to Apple

"This is the classical-app
That Apple wrote but never finished...."

(With apologies to Walter Damrosch.)

 

[Krypton Deer]

“It will support iOS 15.4 and newer and be available “worldwide where Apple Music is offered,” though the company says China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan will come later.”

Sigh..

 

[svish]

Good article. Great to know that Apple is not charging extra for this.

 

[TVreporter]

MR you need me on staff

Fix the headline:

Handel with Care: A Liszt of Things You Need to Know about Apple Music Classical

​

 

[MAcNIAC]

So the only thing I never use for music (my iPhone) is the only platform it's available on? Can it be accessed via HomePod?

i share your frustration, i use an ipad with usb c out into my dac, to my stereo amplifier to my speakers.

making this iphone only hobbles the audio

TVos is the big miss here - IPad is kind of in the same boat as the iPhone in terms of the complications that exist in outputting the source material in hi-res lossless. And classical music and audiophiles go together like peanut butter and jelly.

TVos would be the easiest way to get hi-res lossless - at least up to 24/48 - through an hdmi output into an audio system. External DAC is required for any other device. For my Mac Studio, I have an external audio interface capable of 24/192 but doesn’t support atmos. So for me, I’d also have been happy with a MacOS version as well, but for my main listening system, it’s the HDMI from the AppleTV that is the most seamless way to get lossless audio into an audio system.

no actually its not - you can get hi res digital out if an ipad with a usb c port

 

[MAcNIAC]

It always irks me how people use "Classical Music" when describing symphonic music.

Baroque music was from 1600 to the death of J. S. Bach in 1750
Classical music was from 1750 to around 1825.
Romantic music was from 1825 to around 1900.
Impressionist music kind of overlaps here from around 1890 to around 1930.
From 1900 onward, we have a bunch of different, overlapping eras (Impressionism, Expressionism, Neoclassical, etc).

Again, it just irks me. Nothing more, and I know I'm in the minority on this one. I want to try the app, btw.

i concur, apple should make a seperate app for each era 😅

 

[Vlad Soare]

It always irks me how people use "Classical Music" when describing symphonic music.

Baroque music was from 1600 to the death of J. S. Bach in 1750
Classical music was from 1750 to around 1825.
Romantic music was from 1825 to around 1900.
Impressionist music kind of overlaps here from around 1890 to around 1930.
From 1900 onward, we have a bunch of different, overlapping eras (Impressionism, Expressionism, Neoclassical, etc).

Again, it just irks me. Nothing more, and I know I'm in the minority on this one. I want to try the app, btw.

Well, to be pedantic, not all of it is symphonic. Bach's partitas or Paganini's capriccios are hardly symphonic, for instance.

I can't think of an English word that encompasses all of this music. In Romanian we do have such a word, which I can't translate exactly into English. It would be, roughly, something like 'educated music', or 'cultured music'. But even we don't use it outside very formal contexts; we still call it 'classical' in day to day speech.

Personally, my classification of the various periods in music history is a bit different from yours. For me it's like this:
Baroque music was from 1600 to the death of J. S. Bach in 1750.
Classical music was from 1750 to around 1825.
Romantic music was from 1825 to around 1860.
From 1860 onwards it was noise (though sprinkled with a tiny bit of music here and there until about 1890, after which pure noise took over).

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Wish same could apply to electronic music genre and I am not saying to break it down to every sub-genre that is ridiculous but there are sub-genres of electronic music using search does not always work and older electronic music is hard to find through search.

Apple Music needs a better search option because there is endless amounts of music not just POP.

 

[zapmymac]

I think 24/48 is still great, lossless, and I’m not going to get into an argument over whether you can hear the difference between a 48kHz sample rate and a 192kHz sample rate, but in answer to your question, I understand the limitation being (a) Apple TV was designed as a video device and 48 is the industry standard for the audio tracks of movies, and (b) there are some challenges associated with the AppleTV deciding which sample rate to pass through the hdmi cable - and if you select 192, it would upsample everything to that frequency, and not just identify the sample rate of the track, and pass through at that track’s native sample rate. I think what’s missing is the ability for AppleTV to auto detect the sample rate of source materials and output it a that rate. (I’d be happy for someone to jump in and explain this better). Even on my external audio interface, if I want to play hi-res lossless, I have to go into the audio interface’s dashboard and change the frequency manually to the output desired.

I agree. On my Mac I need to manually set 24/96 as well. On my Denon s760h AVR it automagically does it, as do many new DAC/amps like the Red Firefly.

At the end of the day Apple supposedly leads the pack in love of music. We pay a “premium” for Apple products, LG had a meh phone with excellent audio years ago; it should be an easy “tick of the box” however I think we’ll get there.

If all we got was CD quality on everything, that is also fine with me, since I grew up with cassette tapes, I can remember how stunned I personally was hearing The Police on a CD or Tchaikovsky for the 1st time 🤯🤩

 

[zapmymac]

Wish same could apply to electronic music genre and I am not saying to break it down to every sub-genre that is ridiculous but there are sub-genres of electronic music using search does not always work and older electronic music is hard to find through search.

Apple Music needs a better search option because there is endless amounts of music not just POP.

Older techno, I hold onto my CD’s for this reason alone. Very hard to find that special mix you heard!

 

[apple fan23]

I agree. On my Mac I need to manually set 24/96 as well. On my Denon s760h AVR it automagically does it, as do many new DAC/amps like the Red Firefly.

At the end of the day Apple supposedly leads the pack in love of music. We pay a “premium” for Apple products, LG had a meh phone with excellent audio years ago; it should be an easy “tick of the box” however I think we’ll get there.

If all we got was CD quality on everything, that is also fine with me, since I grew up with cassette tapes, I can remember how stunned I personally was hearing The Police on a CD or Tchaikovsky for the 1st time 🤯🤩

Try the Lossless switcher app - works a treat on my Mac!

LosslessSwitcher adds bit-perfect Apple Music playback to MacOS | Darko.Audio

A neat little app from an independent software developer.

darko.audio

 

[Analog Kid]

The only people who say things like this are dilettantes trying to show off and or put other people down.

Well, you’ve proven you don’t need to be a dilettante to put people down…

 

[dotnet]

Older techno, I hold onto my CD’s for this reason alone. Very hard to find that special mix you heard!

Yes, just like classical music, (re)mixes, DJ sets, even mashups are poorly served by the artist/album/song worldview of Apple Music and every other streaming service out there.

Pop quiz, hotshot:

How many songs did Mozart compose?
Answer: 42 (no, I’m not kidding).

How many Mozart “songs” in streaming service parlance (i.e. pieces of music represented as individual tracks on a CD)?
Answer: About 2700 (by my count, the Philips Complete Mozart Edition has 2711 tracks)

 

[B/D]

I assume the app goes live on March 28th because that when 16.4 will be launched, correct?

 

[Lioness~]

Hot news is that Apple (who repeatedly says they love their customers, and not only their money) will include a bonus for all subscribers of Music the 1st Month with this upgrade.
Everyone will get a pair of free AirPod Max for undisturbed great listing to all the Classical music.
How nice 😉

 

[dotnet]

Everyone will get a pair of free AirPod Max for undisturbed great listing to all the Classical music.

In collaboration with Oprah?

I’d gladly forgo this gift in exchange for a Mac app on launch day.

 

[hanser]

I am curios where they will set the borders of classical music. There is a lot of crossover material, and what about soundtracks? Is John Williams´Star Wars score classical? Or only if played by the Berlin Philharmonic?

 

[Waragainstsleep]

Couldn't see any sign of it on the UK app store.

 

[forzagaribaldi]

Couldn't see any sign of it on the UK app store.

It’s there if you search for it. But not available to install yet.

 

[arkitect]

Hot news is that Apple (who repeatedly says they love their customers, and not only their money) will include a bonus for all subscribers of Music the 1st Month with this upgrade.
Everyone will get a pair of free AirPod Max for undisturbed great listing to all the Classical music.
How nice 😉

Aahh… nice…

*and then I woke up*

🙂

 

[Rockin Robin]

This does not seem to be available in Europe, which is ironic given its roots. I propose Cage,Typewriter but the paper is barely in the machine.

 

[B/D]

This does not seem to be available in Europe, which is ironic given its roots. I propose Cage,Typewriter but the paper is barely in the machine.

I´m confused. I´m from Spain and I had been able to pre-reserve the app in the app Store this morning.

 

[jeffkoontz]

i share your frustration, i use an ipad with usb c out into my dac, to my stereo amplifier to my speakers.

making this iphone only hobbles the audio

no actually its not - you can get hi res digital out if an ipad with a usb c port

My point was that iphone and ipad cant without an external DAC which adds a level of complication and equipment that a hdmi cable from ATV into an AV reciever does not.