Try searching for Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major” on Spotify or Apple Music, and you’ll be met with a big fat mess. While modern music is usually organized by artist or album, classical music works on different terms. That’s why Apple Music is launching a dedicated app for the classical genre.
The Apple Musical Classical app is based on Primephonic, a service that Apple acquired in 2021. Before the acquisition, Primephonic was one of our favorite classical platforms, offering advanced search capabilities with detailed metadata, plus some great playlists. These features are preserved in Apple Music Classical, though the app obviously looks more Apple-like (and includes custom portraits of well-known composers, oddly enough).
This app also provides a ton of editorial information for compositions, performers, composers, and so on. And like the basic Apple Music app, Apple Music Classical supports Hi-Res Lossless streaming and Spatial Audio.
That said, Apple Music Classical appears to lack a “Radio” feature, so users may need to rely on playlists. The App Store description also notes that Apple Music Classical requires an internet connection, which doesn’t inspire hope for offline streaming. And there’s no word on iPad support, though Android support is coming soon.
For reference, we knew that Apple would release a classical app after it acquired Primephonic. But we didn’t know that it would take so long. After Apple Music Classical failed to launch in 2022, I assumed that Apple gave up on the idea—thankfully, I was wrong.
You can pre-order the Apple Music Classical app today. It launches on March 28th and will be available to all Apple Music subscribers. Note that this app requires iOS 15.4 or a later release (if your phone is newer than the iPhone 6S, you’re good).
Source: Apple via Gizmodo
