Apple and classical music

I enjoy both jazz and classical music. This sounds like, pun intended, a great new feature of Apple Music.

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Other than hand-waving, what’s changing?

I am so looking forward to Apple Classical.

Classical music needs so much more than just playlists, album names and artists to really enjoy the music and to dig deeper:

  • composers

  • a much more diverse catalogue than just “Classical” - Old Music, Medieval, Baroque, Classical (which actually has been quite a short period), Romantics, just to mention some epochs

  • a diversification regarding the work categories like symphony, chamber music, opera and so on

Title, Artist, Album? Not really. Artists are not unimportant, but the artist is not always the reason why I listen to a “classical” piece.

But that is still where we are maybe because of the limited metadata MP3 files provided us with.

There is so much to improve.

These days “Classical” feels like a garbage dump in most streaming services sometimes. And unfortunately, Apple Music has been no exception at times in this matter.

There is so much potential… Not only for a good service but also for “classical” music as a genre in improved ways of consumption in the 21st century.

And there is also so much potential for that. :joy: :rofl:

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It’s certainly necessary; Classical searching and discovery on all the major services is terrible. If they can keep the main features of Primephonic - they bought it for the team behind it after all - then it should be good.

Next, hopefully improved, Jazz discovery too… I hope!

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One of the reasons my spouse and I opted for Qobuz as our streaming service is that it provides everything @Christian mentioned above and then some—including downloadable PDFs of the CD inserts with texts, translations, essays, and the like. Qobuz’ library of classical music recordings is at least as deep as any other streaming service’s is.

I weep in frustration every time I try to tag a music file that isn’t a popular genre. Classical music is the most frustrating, but Jazz isn’t far behind.

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Do you like crossover- the violin in particular? David Garrett does a great version of Zeppelin’s Kashmir.

No so much; I prefer, for lack of a better description, “traditional/original” classical. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I like it too. But I saw this violinist on PBS seven years ago or so. I use to work at Orchestra Hall in Chicago so I was expecting one guy to come out and do some classical tunes.
Out walks this handsome German guy with a blond ponytail playing Zeppelin! I was mesmerized, He also does “Carmen”, Beethoven, Mozart- and, of course a mixture of rock and classical. Amazing talent!

By the music or the guy? :joy: Sorry, I just could not resist that one! :slightly_smiling_face:

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ROFLMHO! Ok, I’ll admit it: both!

I didn’t even know crossover existed!

And I’ve been to hundreds of concerts.

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That’s awesome! I use to listen to a lot of Pink Floyd! Thank you!

Oh no… they figured out how to tempt me into subscriptions…

Yes, he is.

I see an artist like he is as somebody who might open the door for “classical” music.

So, what is next for somebody who has gotten into contact with this “handsome guy”? Correct. Browsing Apple Music (or Spotify or whatever), hopefully stumbling upon the “real deal” apart from handsome guys. And then it happens: you are presented the “Classical” genre in the streaming services that is all and nothing. Real classical music? Getting to know epochs? Learning about other composers that are connected to the current one? Not easy. Instead, you are presented with a variety of music that is … quite a weird choice in many situations. Boring. Weird. And not “classical” music.

There is a treasure trove of music of geniuses from several centuries. And it is buried in a mess of all and nothing in most services these days. Everything better than the current state is a huge improvement.

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Is this one Apple Music ? I cannot find that album

Then there’s crossover in the other direction …

My favorite example is German composer Torsten Rasch’s “Mein Herz Brennt” (My Heart Burns), a song cycle for bass-baritone, speaker, and orchestra based on the lyrics and music of Rammstein. I suspect that I am the only person in my census block that has CDs of both Rasch’s take on Rammstein and the Rammstein albums featuring the originals.

To the best of my knowledge, the Dresden Philharmonic’s recording of “Mein Herz Brennt” isn’t on any streaming service, but a video of the entire live performance available on Vimeo.

Another favorite: the reworking of Sufjan Stevens’ “Enjoy Your Rabbit” for string quartet. It was issued as “Run Rabbit Run” by the Osso String Quartet. Both are streamable everywhere.

I have my doubts as to whether either would lead members of the classical music audience to either Rammstein or Sufjan Stevens, though …

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I have spent countless hours trying to develop methods to organize my classical music in iTunes and now Apple Music. I have felt that iTunes has improved greatly over the years so that a lot of the old tricks I had to use became unnecessary. Yet, it still fell short, especially in the playlist department (as others of you have noted). I never wanted to have a separate app, though. I always wanted to one app to be able to better manage music altogether. That said, I’m very hopeful for this new app and am periodically going to the website to see if there have been any updates.

Here are my thoughts on music appreciation – whether it be classical or nearly any other genre. People who get into music want to live in it, organize it, search it, track it, etc. Part of the fun of an album collection is the art work, the liner notes, the lyrics, etc. Another part of the fun is organizing it in a way that makes sense to the collector. Music apps are not the places to skimp. Yes, you can have a radio app that just plays whatever. Perfectly wonderful. But for those us who cherish music – and that Power user group is a BIG group – want robust tools that make organizing our efficient music and accessing it easy. That’s for me, at least, is a huge part of the fun. I love putting Apple Music in column view and seeing all the things certain compositions have in common with other.

And for goodness sake, please make the iOS and iPadOS music apps fully functional. I want the same powerful options and controls on my iPad that I have on my desktop.

And we need the power of Shortcuts unleashed so we can get the next generation of Doug’s Scripts.

Did this just qualify as a rant?

This is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. If Apple Music could capture all that metadata and allow us to search for it, build playlists on it, etc. that would be great. I have a complete tagging system that includes those things. Then I have smart playlists that are built on my tags.

Which, identifies another thing that makes classical music unique. I care most about the period of the composition. But I also like to know when the recording was made. I handle that in the notes because the date of the recording is not of critical significance. Sure would be nice to be able to identify multiple dates for composition and recording.

How great would that also be for non-classical music. Rock music entries allowing the user to record the date of the original recording, plus dates of live concert performances, covers, and what have you.

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David Garrett’s talent supersedes even his good looks. :wink: He is amazing!

I use to work at Orchestra Hall in Chicago. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was led by the great Sir Georg Solti. The music I encountered there really ran the gamut for classical music. Most of it I thoroughly enjoyed. However, it was not what I was listening to AT ALL on the ride home.

I’d love to learn about, experience the various epochs but never have aside from a phenomenal Music Appreciation class in high school. I certainly see now where Apple could open up much of what constitutes those types of “genres”- crossover and true classical.

And I don’t know that Apple has done anything or much of anything on the music appreciation and education end. It was just luck that I didn’t get up and change the channel before David came fiddling down the aisle. I had never heard of crossover but I did know what he was putting together was stunning music.

I had Spotify but that was a while ago. Can you recommend your favorite crossover artists? (I’m not big on opera except for Carmen which I love, and Aida, I think.)

Thanks, Christian!

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For those who really want to get into classical music, I recommend getting a subscription to Gramophone Magazine, it’s a $50 a year subscription in the App Store. This combined with a Spotify subscription is how I follow classical music. The magazine has a section called Editor’s Choice. They pick the best 12 recordings of the month. I create a playlist in Spotify and add all 12 of these albums and listen to it over a month, deciding which ones I like, and which I don’t and add them to my library as I go. They also review pretty much every classical music recording that comes out, so I’ll browse through all the reviews and pick any extra albums that catch my eye. Over the years, I get a balanced view of all the latest and best albums that have been released.

I don’t feel any of the streaming services will ever give this kind of in-depth treatment of classical music because it is such a small niche in the larger commercial music world. I think Spotify has improved the metadata enough that I can find just about anything I read about in the magazine.

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