In 2023, it’s hard to love classical music. Not because of the music itself, it’s just hard to find. Searching for George Gershwin is just as likely to bring up his own performances as music he composed and performed by other artists. The problem is, in metadata, classical music isn’t just based on typical things like artist, genre, song title, or album title. There are soloists to consider, composers, conductors, and pieces performed by an orchestra and choir. Apple Music Classical, based on the Primephonic app Apple acquired in 2021, addresses the issue with metadata and makes me wonder why more apps aren’t as rich in that stuff.
I didn’t realize how little classical music was on my phone until I downloaded Apple Music Classic. I loved classical music, collecting LPs and jumping between different performances, marveling at the subtle changes in music that each conductor and musician created. Before streaming became the dominant way of playing music, I had entire playlists of composers I liked with meticulously populated metadata for each music file. MP3 files actually have a lot of places for metadata.and it was helpful to know which pianist was soloing on which recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
But the nuance was lost when streaming became the dominant form of music streaming. The stream needs to be good enough to reach as many people as possible, and it takes resources to be as meticulous as I would be with my own curated parts list.
Even now, searching for that same concert in the vanilla Apple Music app gives me just two suggested performances before suggesting organ and ukulele covers. That’s not what I want, and I love that on Apple Music Classical I can (and have) spend a couple of hours listening to dozens of performances of Piano Concerto No. 2. Some play it with the sadness of a dirge, others with impressive speed reminiscent of something composed by Franz Liszt, and I can jump from one version to another quickly and easily. There’s even a little description of the concerto that explains its historical context and the difficulty of the piece.
A genuine affection for music is felt in Apple Music Classical. Quite a few pieces that he would consider quite significant receive the same treatment of Rachmaninoff’s work, with dozens of interpretations and a neat little explanation. But there are also many ways to find music. I can search by composer if I feel like it’s some kind of Ralph Vaughan Williams morning or by artist if I’m itching for more Sviatoslav Richter in my life. I can also search by instrument, orchestra, ensemble, conductor or soloist, or even choir.
I was particularly impressed with the variety of choral music, which seemed more robust, or at least easier to find, than on other music apps. I spent years looking for a specific arrangement of “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” that I heard in college and finally found it on Music Classical (it’s from Bairstow: Great Cathedral Hymns Vol. 1, and it’s almost embarrassingly emotional, I adore it). I was also able to hear only the recording of a specific choir that I have been fond of for years.
Classical music is not always perfect. I was surprised that “Sliding Dance of the Maidens” from the Polovtsian Dances in prince igor it was not included in the popular works of Alexander Borodin since it is the basis for the well-known song “Stranger in Paradise” from the 1953 musical the kismet. But that could just be a me thing.
All of this is to say that I’m in love with Apple Music Classical, and I keep wondering why the regular app isn’t more like it. While classical music certainly needs a wide variety of metadata, I like to think that most music needs it, too. People like to listen to the works of a single producer, and when they search for Stephen Sondheim, they should be able to see all the musicals he composed as clearly as I can see all the works of Antonín Dvořák in Classical Music.
I understand why the main app doesn’t provide the same kind of nuance in search and navigation. It covers many different music genres with many different listener expectations, and has to do a good enough job for all of them, while Music Classical does an excellent job for only one. But I already have coworkers wondering where the Jazz version of this app is, and I don’t think they’re the only ones. Right now, music streaming apps are trying to differentiate themselves from each other to earn our money. Apple is forcing spatial audio on us, and Spotify is trying to get us interested in podcasts, and YouTube Music is quick to give us a video and remind us of its origins in the main app. But Music Classical remembers that many of us are giant nerds, and we just want to go down the rabbit holes with our favourites.
