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Sound the fanfare: the Apple Music Classical App has arrived.
In late March, Apple introduced the streaming platform, designed specifically for classical music — which often gets short shrift on services like Spotify, Tidal or Amazon Music, all engineered primarily for pop, rock and other genres. The Apple Music Classical App consists of 5 million tracks of 117,000 works by more than 20,000 composers. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is one of 10 major classical institutions partnering with Apple in the venture, now available only for the iPhone (running iOS 15.4 or later). An Android version is in the works.
It’s not often — or ever, really — that a portion of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra vacates the grand confines of Orchestra Hall to gig in a local retail shop. But that’s exactly what the famed CSO Brass Quintet will do when its members will perform April 12 at 7 p.m. in a free mini-concert at the Apple store on Michigan Avenue to celebrate the recent launch.
Among the app’s millions of tracks are four celebrated CSO recordings newly issued in the Spatial Audio format from the CSO Resound catalog: Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 (Babi Yar), “Riccardo Muti Conducts Italian Masterworks” and Anthology of Fantastic Zoology. The first two won Grammy Awards; the last is a CSO-commissioned work written by former Mead Composer-in-Residence and Grammy winner Mason Bates. But wait, there’s more: the 2022 CSO Resound release of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, which was originally issued in Spatial Audio (a form of digital surround-sound in which music appears to envelop the listener from all directions). All five recordings feature the CSO under the baton of Zell Music Director Riccardo Muti.
“The app is exciting as a delivery method, getting music to more peoples’ ears,” says Charlie Post, a Grammy-winning CSO audio engineer. “One of the problems with streaming services until now is that they’re geared toward every genre — except classical. Sure, Spotify, Tidal or Qobuz will play a movement from Pictures at an Exhibition or Le Sacre du printemps/Rite of Spring, and then play something completely different instead of following with the next movement.”
Another problem, Post adds, is that users never know which orchestras those apps will randomly choose. Type in R. Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, and you could get the Berlin Philharmonic (good). Or the Portsmouth Sinfonia (oof).
While there’s plenty of tried-and-true content from familiar orchestras, soloists and composers, lesser-known names also are brought to the fore. As a recent New York Times write-up noted, “Part of Apple’s mission appears to be to help elevate overlooked artists, particularly women and people of color. For example, a tab of composers begins with Beethoven, Bach and Mozart but then expands to Clara Schumann, Caroline Shaw and Errollyn Wallen, as well as William Grant Still.”
As for audio quality, Post says, streaming doesn’t have to equal awful. In fact, with a good set of earbuds or headphones, Apple Music Classical users can squeeze maximum fidelity from the app’s highest audio quality setting of 192 kHz/24 bit Hi-Res Lossless. If you’re not in the audiofile loop, that means the music isn’t digitally compressed to achieve memory conservation and quicker playback.
The app is available to Apple Music subscribers at no additional cost. For others, plans are available at price points of $4.99, $5.99 and $10.99 a month. Annual plans cost $99 for individuals and $180 for families (up to six people).
Media assessments of the service have been uniformly upbeat. In an article titled, “Why can’t more music apps be like Apple Music Classical?” the Verge wrote, “There feels like a genuine affection for the music in Apple Music Classical. Quite a few pieces I’d consider fairly significant get the same treatment of Rachmaninov’s work, with dozens of renditions and a neat little explanation. But there are also just a lot of ways to find the music. … I was particularly impressed by the array of choir music, which felt more robust, or at least easier to find, than on other music apps.”
The Times reviewer was equally impressed: “On many streaming platforms, I have struggled to find Rachmaninov’s recordings of his compositions. A search for his name on Spotify, for example, returns a disorderly display of his most popular works, such as Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, performed by a wide variety of artists. But on Apple Music Classical, it is easier to quickly locate his recordings because the app can distinguish between Rachmaninov the composer and Rachmaninov the pianist or conductor.”
All of which is to say, whether it’s Maestro Muti leading the CSO in a riveting performance of Verdi’s Requiem or any other selection you want to hear, streaming classical music just got a whole lot better.
