It’s been almost two years since Apple will announcealong with the purchase of Primephonic, the launch of Apple Music Classical, an application dedicated to listening to classical music. But it’s finally here. Of course: with certain limitations, such as its interface that is not adapted to the large screen of the iPad or the absence of an application for macOS.
Originally, Primephonic offered a classical music listening service that differs from Apple Music or Spotify due to the search design, menu navigation and recommendations adapted to classical music, which are compositions that are very different in structure from the music we enjoy today.
In the Baroque, obviously, there were no sessions collaborating with another famous artist to “blow up the Internet.” Neither were there any albums or singles. Services like Spotify or Apple Music are therefore invalid to attend in a correct way to the fan of classical music. His way of cataloging music only serves to attend to our concept of music from the 20th century on.
Hence, Apple has decided to bet on an independent app called Apple Music Classical. But has the company achieved its purpose with this product?
Why a dedicated application and how it should work
The cataloging of digital music that we know today comes from services like iTunes and, also, with piracy (by converting CDs into individual tracks that are stored on hard drives). To maintain order, each file was assigned a series of metadata, including artist, album, and song, among others.
The problem is that classical music is not organized like this, and this error has persisted with the rise of services in streamingwhich focus on albums, playlists and singles. At best, amalgamations of various interpreters are presented without no order in which the user is unable to know what he is listening to and, much less, its numbering, tonality or interpreter.
We understand by classical music all production based on the liturgical and secular traditions of the West. Its history covers about a thousand years from the first compositions that we preserve, such as the cantigas de Santa María, measured in the court of King Alfonso X the Wise.
To make a correct organization, it is necessary to divide by period of production (medieval music, Renaissance music, baroque music, classicism, romanticism and contemporary classical music) and by genre to distinguish music directed to orchestra, stage works, such as the opera, or choirs.
In addition, each composition is usually classified for him opus, from Latin, work, which numbers all compositions to refer to it. Within each opus there may be several movements or parts, a tonality and the information of the artist, philharmonic or orchestra that interprets the piece.
In summary: it is much more complicated to classify Vivaldi’s ‘Mandolin Concerto’ than Rosalía’s ‘Motomami’, but once these concepts are clear, and all the metadata is filled in, it is easy to correctly group and display classical music .
The virtues of Apple Music Classical
The first impression when entering Apple Music Classical is very positive. All the compositions that came to my mind were classified by composer, tonality and his opus. And when you select it, it shows you all the performances with enough space to see which orchestra it is and who is conducting it, for example. During playback, it displays related compositions from the same author or period, and even other works by the conductor or violinist who is interpreting what you are listening to.
The catalog is very extensive, and I have not found a recording that is not in lossless audio quality format. You feel at all times that you are listening to the best possible recording of that performance.
His classification by genre, period and instrument is well thought out and accomplished. Especially that of the instrument, which can be of great help for amateurs and conservatory students, since the most distinguished pieces are grouped based on work first and then by interpretation – so that the user can compare.
The playlist selected by the editorial team are varied, and have an informative table to delve into its history and its peculiarities of high quality and erudition for the general public.
Although there is still much to improve
However, despite the fact that fans have had to wait almost two years, the application is not available for macOS. On the iPad, on the other hand, it is as if it did not exist due to the lack of adaptation of its interface to the peculiarities of the latter.
Beyond the limitation of applications, other gaps begin to become visible quickly and clearly during the use of Apple Music Classical. Genres as important as Gregorian chant are not attended to in the slightest, and are only poorly integrated into ‘vocal music’ along with compositions that have nothing to do with religion. Opera and zarzuela are also surprisingly neglected, even though they are well classified and grouped by work. In this case, the grouping is crucial, since the work was designed to be heard from beginning to end. They are not songs, as Spotify thinks, but scenes to represent.
Lastly, I am surprised that ChatGPT is capable of finding and explaining an article of the Spanish Penal Code and that at the same time Apple Music Classical is incapable of showing me symphonies of romanticism in a grouped way. When you look for something like this, the search engine interprets that you are looking for something composed by a man called Don Sinfonías Romanticismo. And of course, that man does not exist and Apple Music Classical tells you that there are no results. When you search for Gregorian chant, it is only able to show you the recordings that have “Gregorian chant” in their title, that is, almost none. These are improvements that can be achieved in this regard, and it will not be difficult if the metadata classification is correct and comprehensive, as it should be, since that is the main object of the application. You could even, at least, create several editorial selection lists to attend to this type of search with the criteria of your team of experts.
Within the classification by instrument, it is not possible to filter by period either. It would be very interesting so that the fan could check the evolution of it or because, simply, he enjoys more of the protagonism that a certain instrument enjoyed in a certain period.
The portraits illustrating the most famous composers, on the other hand, are excellent and exude good taste. All of them have a noteworthy stylistic and chromatic cohesion, but only the most popular, in the opinion of Apple or the publicists who popularized their compositions, have such a privilege. This will expand over time, I understand, but seeing the initial of certain composers instead of their portrait gives the feeling of looking for alternative music from a home DJ when in fact we are talking about musical geniuses portrayed in life.
Being aware that Apple Music Classical has just been released, classical music fans and those who want to delve into listening and learning should be happy, as it is a good start to facilitate and encourage their enjoyment. However, there are still months of improvement in its classification, editorial selection and joint arrangement between subgenre and period. Everything will depend on how high a priority Apple places on serving this demographic, which finally has centuries of music, well classified and with the best possible sound quality, in the palm of its hand.