Apple Music Classical Review: Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my Apple Music Classical review. The first part examines classical music metadata and why a dedicated app for classical music is necessary.

Discovery

For both the amateur and connoisseur, Apple Music Classical is one of the best ways to discover classical music. Composer playlists highlight famous works in addition to more obscure pieces from a composer's output. Other playlists explore a particular time period or musical style. The classical nerd in me appreciates that playlists often include entire works instead of selected movements. The recordings chosen for playlists also run the gamut from older recordings to recent releases. Additionally, there are “classical music by mood” playlists. These aren’t for me, but I use similar playlists for other genres so I'm not one to judge.

I have found several composers and works that I was unfamiliar with through the Classical app’s playlists. I appreciate that these composer's are given equal weight to the standard repertoire in Apple Music Classical’s interface. Apple Music Classical does a great job of offering something for everyone coming to the app. New listeners might discover Beethoven symphonies for the first time, while more experienced listeners could come across an Ethyl Smith or Florence Price playlist and hear a composer previously unknown to them.

I have listened to some of The Story of Classical podcast and playlists within the app. As a professional classical musician, I am not the target audience, but I admire the show's presentation of classical music. I often find that media meant to make classical music more accessible often struggles to find the right balance between respecting the tradition while being approachable to a new listener.

The Story of Classical podcast conceives of classical music as music that “originates in Western Europe, is transmitted through a notational system” but is not limited to either of these characteristics. The host Guy Jonas explains that understanding the complexity of classical music is not needed to enjoy it, that classical music is just music from a particular time and place. My favorite thing about this podcast is that in between narrative sections, the podcasts simply allows large sections of the music discussed to just play without commentary. It drives the point that while a little context can help foster appreciation, the most important thing is to just listen to the music.

Another great feature for learning more about classical music is the inclusion of liner notes from albums. If notes are available, a booklet icon appears at the top of an album page. Browsing liner notes is a pretty basic experience. Tapping the icon will essentially download a PDF and present you with pages you can pinch-to-zoom and swipe across.

I’m thankful to have access to liner notes which were otherwise only sporadically available on the web. Technical information, such as the recording venue or the exact instruments used, is often only available in a CD’s liner notes. This is yet another feature catered to nerds like me using the app.

Apple Music Classical is able to serve the needs of different listeners. With approachable playlists and podcasts, new listeners have multiple ways to get into classical music. The advanced search features, playlists that offer deeper cuts and access to liner notes enable connoisseurs to go deeper with the music.

Pivot to Video?

Despite having the Apple Music Classical app, I actually do a lot of my music listening on YouTube. Many orchestras, concert venues, and musicians upload high quality video of their performances to YouTube.

Classical music, as a performing art, benefits from video. There’s a certain energy and excitement inherent to a live performance that is difficult to recreate on a studio recording. As a recovering perfectionist, I also find myself gravitating towards video recordings because they look and sound less “produced” than the almost sanitary sound you hear on some studio recordings. And as much as musicians like to believe we listen to music with our ears, the visual element of a performance should be considered a part of the complete classical music experience.

Like regular Apple Music, YouTube search is not the ideal interface for browsing by composer and works. Furthermore, YouTube’s aggressive algorithm seems to be actively hiding many performances in favor of videos unrelated to my search query. Being able to access video performances in the Apple Music Classical interface would be incredible for fans of classical performances.

I imagine the main impediment to getting more video in the Classical app is legal and economic. Still, as a consumer of classical music, I hope the deals with musicians for uploading performances to an ad-supported platform like YouTube would be possible for a subscription-based platform such as Apple Music Classical.

This isn't to say that Apple should be creating a public video-sharing service where anyone can upload footage—that would be a moderation nightmare. Creating a space for labels, orchestras, and venues to share their video recordings, however, would take the Classical app to the next level.

The Berlin Philharmonic and their Digital Concert Hall app offers a subscription service for access to their concert archive and livestreams. I imagine few other ensembles have the resources and clout to create a profitable video platform. Other orchestras, such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, offer digital access to their performances through their website. Many classical venues are set up to produce video recordings of their performances. It has been reported that digital audiences haven’t heretofore been sizable enough to justify the cost of a subscription video platform for orchestras. The economics of YouTube also make it seem unlikely that significant monetization occurs there for classical musicians. All of this suggests that music organizations have much of the infrastructure in place to produce high quality videos of their performances, but what they lack is a paying digital audience to make to make it worthwhile.

As it did with the App Store, Apple Music Classical could bring that audience. As subscription service, there is already a system in place for artists to be compensated for their streams. An orchestra such as the excellent Frankfurt Radio Symphony might be willing to add their expansive YouTube video catalog to Apple Music Classical. However, since the goal is expand the availability of concert videos, the revenue from existing streaming services might not be enough to justify further investment.

There is another possibility. Apple TV+ offers channels to get additional streaming services as an add-on to your subscription. Adding a “channels” subscription to Apple Music Classical could be an opportunity for listeners to gain access to video performances from classical musicians. The Berlin Philharmonic and Frankfurt Radio Symphony are examples of orchestras that produce excellent video recordings that I hope to see added, but I would also like to see smaller venues, such as Wigmore Hall and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center offer chamber music performances. Video channels from these and others in Apple Music Classical would bring all of my classical music listening into a single app with excellent search and discovery tools.

Channels could be offered individually or potentially bundled together. The simplicity for Apple users to add a video subscription as an in-app purchase would be much easier than navigating the fractured landscape of individual apps and websites that currently exists for streaming classical concerts. Offering video in an app for self-selecting classical music aficionados with an existing subscription might also be more lucrative for music organizations than trying to spin up their own video service.

Apple would certainly take their infamous cut in a hypothetical classical music subscription add-on. But a hypothetical Classical add-on subscription would be an additional platform for musicians to monetize their product, not the only one as is the case for app developers on iOS. Serious consideration of this proposal of course depends on its ability to grow the market for classical music and support the livelihoods of musicians. Classical music is already in a precarious position, so opportunities to grow and expand its audience should be explored.

Design

Apple Music Classical has a similar design to Apple Music. A Tab bar at the bottom gives quick access to Home, Browse, Library, and Search pages. The Home tab presents recently played albums, Top Charts, New Releases, as well as curated playlists and album suggestions. The Browse tab is one of my favorites. It allows you to explore by composer, instrument, performer, as well as the curated playlists. Library features music, well, added to your library. The Works page offers quick access to favorited compositions, and is an easy way to dive into comparative listening of saved pieces.

A subtle difference from the regular Music app is the font. I appreciate the use of serifs in Apple's custom New York font for the headings in Apple Music Classical. If music genres were fonts, classical music would unquestionably have serifs.

Another piece of unique visual flair are the composer's “profile pictures.” While I acknowledge the attempt to elevate the app experience with custom artwork, many of the portraits look like a snuffbox-fueled Midjourney fever dream. Beethoven emerges relatively unscathed, while Chopin looks like a completely different person to me.

Twentieth and twenty-first century composers fair a little better, often having an actual photographic portrait for their picture. Some composers get neither a portrait or photograph, and instead have a strangely bulbous initial. There seems to be some theming to the initials based on the composer’s time period. Often, as in the case of Astor Piazolla and Borodin, the initial feels visually disjointed from the composer’s musical style.

This approach to composer portraits feels misguided. Using historical portraits and photographs would have been better for getting immersed in the composer’s music, and using initials in a simple font for the composers without a picture would have drawn less attention to their absence. I hope we eventually see changes to these images to be simpler and more accurate.

Multiple Music Libraries

Having separate apps for classical and non-classical music listening has changed the way I listen to music. However, using multiple apps to manage a single music library has its drawbacks and limitations. Changing the music library management would enable power users to make the most out of using multiple apps.

Apple Music Classical is essentially contained within Apple Music, and only the classical music catalog is available in the Classical app. The regular app retains access to the entire catalog of music, including classical repertoire. When in Apple Music, albums considered “Classical” get a treble-clef button at the top. Tapping that button takes the user to the same album page in the Classical app. Your library also becomes segmented with Apple Music Classical, only showing “Classical” albums and hiding all other music.

For most users who might only have a few albums of classical music in their library, it makes sense to not force them into using the Classical app for a small part of their library. The Classical portion of your library also syncs between apps; an album added to your Classical library will appear later in your Music library and vice-versa. While this current library management system should remain the default for most users, I often wish I could have separate libraries between the Classical and Music apps.

Often a particular activity accompanies the choice to listen to either classical or non-classical music. Classical listening often entails grabbing wired headphones, doing some performance research or score study, comparative listening, or just trying to absorb a performance or composition. Non-classical listening might entail following along with Taylor Swift’s lyrics, running with a workout playlist, or enjoying some “Defiant Jazz” while cooking.

Before, all of these activities were associated with the same app, but the Apple Music Classical gives me a way to be more focused with both types of listening. Currently, only the Classical app benefits from having a filtered library. My non-classical library has to compete for visibility with my classical library in the Music app. A setting to separate these libraries further would be helpful for appreciating my non-classical library further, that way Laufey and Sufjan Stevens don’t get lost among Lully and Saint-Saëns.

I can also envision scenarios where users might want to download non-classical and classical music in different audio formats or spatial mixes. For power users of the Classical app (we are legion), being able to control our libraries with more specificity would reinforce the reasons for using separate streaming apps.

App Performance

My main issue with the Apple Music Classical app are technical limitations that seem strange for a product coming from Apple. First, Apple Music Classical only works with an internet connection. Even your downloaded library downloaded is inaccessible if your device is offline. Downloaded music can still be played through the regular Music app which makes the lack of offline playback in the Classical app more frustrating It’s a weird limitation to for an app to launch with, and the fact that it remains an issue two year later is baffling.

*Inexplicably, the Classical app only works when connected to the internet, even for locally downloaded music.*

This required internet connectivity may also be behind my other main complaint: the general sluggishness of the app. Apple’s iOS apps are snappy and provide visual and tactile feedback to user input.The performance of Apple Music Classical is reminiscent of a neglected municipal parking apps, not a flagship app from the owner of the operating system. I frequently find myself doubting if I pressed the touch targets in the Classical app.

Apple Music Classical is only available on some of Apple’s OSes. iOS and iPadOS have dedicated apps. The iOS app also supports CarPlay for when you you’d like to rock out to Bach while stuck in traffic. Notably absent platforms include macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. Among these, I hope to see macOS and tvOS first.

The Mac Music app, which still feels like iTunes, is in desperate need of a general overhaul, so hopefully Apple Music Classical on the Mac could accompany a new version of the regular Music app. The Mac and Apple TV are also platforms where users might connect wired headphones, speakers, or audiophile equipment. Bringing Apple Music Classical to these platforms would serve to highlight the hi-res lossless and spatial audio capabilities of the Apple Music service.

Recently, Apple Music Classical became available as a web app. I’ve tried it in Chrome on a Windows PC and Safari on macOS, and the web version already feels better than the native iOS/iPadOS experience. Hopefully the addition of a web app and the work that went into it is a precursor for improvements to the native apps.

As I was brainstorming areas that need improvement, I thought of Siri, but I’m not even going to ask for Siri integration with Apple Music Classical. Can you imagine asking Apple's assistant to play “Mstislav Rostropovich performing Henri Dutilleux’s ‘Tout un monde lointain…’?”

Conclusions

It’s interesting to consider if Apple Music Classical has more tricks up its sleeve. I can see the app’s approach to metadata being adapted to other genres of music. Jazz, rock, and hip-hop are all potential genres where allowing users to explore their discography in a more tailored manner could enrich the listening experience. Already, Apple Music enables users to view lyrics and song credits. An app that lets you explore hip-hop through a web of samples, or another app that enables rock fans to dig deeper into song credits could cater to enough unique niches for the Apple Music service to stand out among competing streaming services that essentially offer the same product. A tagline for suite of specialized music apps could be "Apple Music: for the super fan."

Still, if Apple Music Classical can foster passion for classical music and introduce the art form to a new audience, then it has the potential to make a positive impact for the field.

Its search capabilities, music discovery and curation tools are excellent and keep me coming to the app. While I think some of the visual elements are hilariously misguided, the required internet connection and slow performance is my principal complaint of using the app. The good things about the app make me want to use it more--both on Apple's other platforms especially macOS and tvOS. I also hope more video comes to the app in order to replace my classical music viewing on YouTube with its unoptimized search.

Despite its limitations and quirks, I recommend that everyone interested in classical music give the app a try.