By Courtesy of Apple
Old-fashioned, elitist, passé... prejudices around classical music tend to be rather ingrained. However, it's a musical genre that continues to reinvent itself as it looks to draw in younger audiences. A phenomenon that Apple Music has taken note of with the creation of a new dedicated app.
Old-fashioned, elitist, passé... prejudices around classical music tend to be rather ingrained. However, it's a musical genre that continues to reinvent itself as it looks to draw in younger audiences. A phenomenon that Apple Music has taken note of with the creation of a new dedicated app.
This app is called Apple Music Classical and will be launched on March 28. It will allow users to "instantly find any recording in the world’s largest classical music catalog with search built for the genre," explains the tech giant on its website.
Apple Music Classical users will have a catalog of five million classical music tracks at their disposal. They will be able to find specific recordings through a search mode that filters their queries by composer, work, conductor, or even catalog number. In addition, the app will include composer biographies and in-depth guides to many key works in the classical repertoire.
Apple also announced that its new app will integrate spatial audio to allow listeners to rediscover many works in a new light. The American company introduced this format two years ago in a bid to differentiate its unlimited music offering in an ultra-competitive market dominated by Swedish giant Spotify.
Currently, classical music fans can listen to the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Bach on Apple Music, as is the case with most other audio streaming subscriptions. By launching an app dedicated to the classical repertoire, Apple hopes to stand out in the crowded music streaming market as well as mine a segment of recorded music that is still under-exploited.
Because, there are in fact few apps exclusively dedicated to classical music out there. Idagio holds a leading position in this market, with its catalog of two million songs. Its big rival, Primephonic, was bought by Apple in August 2021, and integrated into the experience of the music streaming service of the Tim Cook-helmed company. "Bringing the best of Primephonic to Apple Music subscribers is a tremendous development for the classical music industry," Thomas Steffens, Primephonic's co-founder and CEO, said at the time of the acquisition. "We get to bring classical music to the mainstream and connect a new generation of musicians with the next generation of audience."
Contrary to popular belief, interest in classical music is multigenerational. It reaches a much wider and younger audience than stereotypes would suggest, thanks in particular to social networks. For example, the use of instrumental pieces on YouTube has increased by 90% over the last 12 months, according to a report by Epidemic Sound. The same appetite for classical music can be observed on TikTok, the leading youth app, where the hashtag #classicalmusic has more than 2.3 billion views. Some of the fans that Apple hopes to attract with its new streaming app.
