- Apple Music Classical gets listening guides, personalized recommendations and editorial playlists
- These updates are only app and not to the web browser
- Apple Music Classical remains free for all Apple Music subscribers
If you are an Apple Music subscriber who has never intended to get into his dedicated and accessible-for-no-Extra cost Apple Music Classical App, it would now be a good time to press the download button.
Why? Because the Apple Music Classical, the place where Apple Music has housed its massive classic music catalog since the launch of March 2023, (much of it in Dolby Atmos), added just three excellent new features: Listening guides, personalized recommendations and – my favorite – editorial stations.
The trio with new perks is exclusive to the app (which is a shame as Apple Music Classic just this month became available online), but listening guides are available in over 100 works from the launch. It is described by Apple as “a pioneering new feature that takes users inside a remarkable music work as they listen, highlight details and explain a work in real time when it takes place from the musical phrase.”
Every day is a learning day
I tried it while I stream Wolfie Ms as nobody calls the hugely productive composer who died tragic young) Clarinet concert in a majorAnd it’s like getting cliffnotes in real time when you stream. The text appears happily on my iPhone that mentions Florid Arpeggio runs, intense high trills and smooth exchanges from the string section to guide us back to the large scale.
It’s nice – I even know now that the clarinet in 1791 was still a relatively new instrument and that Mozart actually wrote this concert for the Bass clarinet. Every day is a learning day.
Right now, listening guides are available in English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Simplified Chinese. But Apple says more languages and works will be added – and will these authors not have their good work carved for them? I look forward to it.
Personal recommendations meanwhile, what the name suggests, using your listening story to suggest related offers, as well as new recordings of works you have previously listened to.
Both of these perks are hugely welcome in a genre that has felt a little stoic to me so far (it often feels like discovery across streaming places is a bit stopped when it comes to classic – you are expected to know what you like), but editorial stations are far my favorite.
As you’ve probably guessed, it’s a selection of ongoing playlists (like radio stations, but without DJ or ADS) organized by instrument, composer, period or genre, curated by Apple Music Classical’s editors. I am currently listening to one entitled Opera, and Bizet’s Carmen is all around me in Dolby Atmos.
Added to yesterday’s launch of DJ in Apple Music to help budding disc jockeys build epic sets, plus the inevitable fact that Apple Music Replay went all over Spotify wrapped in the end of last year, you can say this to Apple Music and its free-to-users Apple Music Classic Siblings: That’s good. It’s one of the best music streaming services out there, and then some.
