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Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

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Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#41

Post by mwest217 »

vestrigi wrote: post #10
crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. But I wonder if it will help with finding which version of a work to listen to. A given symphony or piano prelude might have 100 or more recordings. If you go to classical music forum postings, you can usually find a thread asking "what's your favori…

Do you have an accessible example for two different recordings of a composition that each shine in their own light?

My favorite example of this is the Glenn Gould recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations. He has 2 famous recordings - one recorded in 1955, another in 1981. They are very different in tone.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#42

Post by pwinnski »

pxc wrote: post #31
crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. But I wonder if it will help with finding which version of a work to listen to. A given symphony or piano prelude might have 100 or more recordings. If you go to classical music forum postings, you can usually find a thread asking "what's your favori…

> This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. It really doesn't. It was easy enough to organize music by the correct metadata in a local collection on Amarok 15 years ago. ID3 already supports all of the requisite metadata. You just need an app that is flexible and supports a 'now playing queu…

> needs a dedicated interface

>> It really doesn't... You just need an app that is flexible

Do you have a suggestion about an app that doesn't suck for classical music? I'm aware that metadata fields exist, but that doesn't help with playback, which is why the original comment mentioned a dedicated interface.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#43

Post by mustacheemperor »

nickpp wrote: post #30
pwinnski wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% accurate. Classical music is just different from other music in too many ways to make them work well in the same UI. I have yet to see a UI that does it well, so I'm looking forward to seeing Apple's stab at it. Generally you can't go wrong with Deutsche Grammophon, or Hyperion, or even Telarc, but there sure are some stinkers out there, labels just trying to have a large catalog of any quality. And some…

Anybody else tried the Stage+ app from Deutsche Grammophon? https://www.stage-plus.com/ The player is kinda crappy. The content quality is quite good though, lossless and such. The selection is excellent.

Hey, thanks for the recommendation! This looks great.

I can endorse the Berlin Phil's Digital Concert Hall, which is a very well made app and also streams in 4k/lossless/atmos too - Berlin Phil performances only, though. It's essentially a remote seasonal membership to the symphony. It looks like Stage+ has a wider range of performances, which is appealing, although it's very fun to watch evening concerts live from Germany almost any day of the week at 11am Pacific.

https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concerts

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#44

Post by dhosek »

crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. But I wonder if it will help with finding which version of a work to listen to. A given symphony or piano prelude might have 100 or more recordings. If you go to classical music forum postings, you can usually find a thread asking "what's your favori…

From the screenshots, it looks like it does allow you to find different recordings of the same work with pointers to the most popular/esteemed.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#45

Post by dhosek »

WillAdams wrote: post #36
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #23

Welp, I estimate this will kill my NPR Classical Radio app within a year or so.

I'm still surprised that there isn't a requirement for streaming services to carry publicly beneficial content (and pay a license fee for such content to NPR/PBS).

The Republicans in congress hate NPR/PBS and have done everything they can to cut off any source of funding to it. Newt Gingrich famously wanted to zero out public broadcasting funds in the 90s.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#46

Post by crazygringo »

tomComb wrote: post #38
hulitu wrote: post #2

> These can be streamed in high-quality audio of up to 192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless up to. And down to ? 0 bps ?

You seem to be getting downvoted, but generally I think consumers should be wary of this phrasing ('up to') and it should be called out. It is often a way for companies (or headlines) to seem to be claiming something without actually committing to anything.

In many cases I'd agree, but in this case I think it's perfectly fine (and there's no other way) since Apple is just a distributor for other people's recordings.

I think it's pretty clear Apple is making "192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless" distribution and listening available, but obviously it's up to labels and artists to supply actual recordings at that level. And many can't, simply because it wasn't mastered at that level, or wasn't even recorded at it.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#47

Post by dhosek »

KingMob wrote: post #16

Nice, but it would be great if Apple fixed the UI and bugs in Apple Music first. I can't hide the non-streaming parts I'll never use, but sometimes search keeps directing me to it. And that's when searching itself isn't wildly broken. A quarter of the time, the search bar loses focus after each character, requiring me to click back in or reboot the app.

Me, I’d prefer to hide the streaming parts that I don’t use.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#48

Post by scarface74 »

behnamoh wrote: post #4

Great, because we need more specialized apps. I love classical music but I would rather use Spotify for that purpose because at this point I have realized the only thing important for Apple is money. I prefer not to further contribute to a trillion dollar company that has so much restrictions in their ecosystem.

Well you are right about one thing. Since Spotify hasn’t made a profit - ever - they definitely don’t seem to care about money.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#49

Post by mustacheemperor »

mwest217 wrote: post #41
vestrigi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an accessible example for two different recordings of a composition that each shine in their own light?

My favorite example of this is the Glenn Gould recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations. He has 2 famous recordings - one recorded in 1955, another in 1981. They are very different in tone.

I'm looking forward to this app in part because I think I can finally let go of keeping the Plex Player app on my phone almost exclusively for listening to the Glenn Gould SACD collection I ripped like a decade ago. Great recommendation, and I'm genuinely happy at the thought that this release could expose a lot more people to his work.

Re: Apple launches its new classical music streaming app for pre-order

#50

Post by crazygringo »

pxc wrote: post #31
crazygringo wrote: post #3

This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. But I wonder if it will help with finding which version of a work to listen to. A given symphony or piano prelude might have 100 or more recordings. If you go to classical music forum postings, you can usually find a thread asking "what's your favori…

> This is fantastic, classical music absolutely needs a dedicated interface since the organization by composer and multi-movement works is so different from popular music. It really doesn't. It was easy enough to organize music by the correct metadata in a local collection on Amarok 15 years ago. ID3 already supports all of the requisite metadata. You just need an app that is flexible and supports a 'now playing queu…

It's not just about organizing, though -- it's about social discovery.

It's about having a "current top composers" next to "current top artists".

It's about "current top songs" not having all 4 movements of a single work listed as separate songs. It's about the radio feature not randomly dropping you into the 17th track of an opera (with exceptions for certain arias).

It's about "people who listen to this composer also listen to..." along side "people who listen to this artist also listen to...".

But even organization was never fully solved in ID3, because it doesn't support multiple artists on a track (or multiple composers) in any standardized way. It's already a problem in popular music, but even worse in classical when both a conductor and a soloist and an orchestra are performing. ID3 doesn't have any way to group movements of a work together either -- you have to smush work and movement together in the title field.

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