Apple Launches Apple Music Classical App

Specifically designed for classical music, Apple’s new standalone app includes over 5 million tracks

Apple Music Classical will feature hundreds of curated playlists, composer biographies, discussion guides for certain pieces, and thousands of exclusive albums, from new releases to old favorites. As of this week, the app is available on Apple's App Store, with no extra cost to those with nearly all Apple Music subscriptions.

Collaborating with many acclaimed music institutions and classical musicians around the world, like cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violinist Hilary Hahn, Apple Music Classical has worked to ensure accurate displays of what work and which artist is playing.

“Classical music — and all of culture — is fundamentally about connection, about forging bonds of understanding across time and space,” said Yo-Yo Ma. “It’s innovations like this that make that connection possible, that give us space for our curiosity to run, to rediscover the familiar, and to rejoice in the unexpected.”

There are over 700 playlists that guide listeners through 800 years of music, with more to come. Some recordings are accompanied by track-by-track audio commentary from leading classical artists. Additionally, the new app also involves Apple Music’s lossless audio and immersive sound — powered by spatial audio technology with Dolby Atmos.

“I’m thrilled that Apple Music is taking the initiative to set a new standard for classical music in the streaming age,” said Hilary Hahn. “I know that I can trust Apple Music’s natively high-quality uncompressed audio to convey the subtleties of my performance, my instrument, and the space in which it’s played. And even a solo classical recording is a deeply collaborative process; Apple Music Classical’s extensive metadata ensures that everyone — composers, arrangers, conductors, musicians, producers, publishers, and more — gets the credit they deserve.”

To ease the complexities of searching for a piece, Apple Music Classical has redesigned the search function using all combinations of keywords — from composer and work to opus number, conductor, artist, instrument, and even a work’s nickname. Looking up a work reveals all its recordings along with an Editor’s Choice performance.

“We love music — that’s really what we’re all about — and classical music is foundational to music of all genres,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats. “Apple Music Classical is a dedicated app that is great for classical experts as well as anyone who is new to classical, with the largest classical music selection in the world, the very best search and browse capabilities, the most premium sound experience with Spatial Audio, and thousands of exclusive recordings. We believe this is the very best classical music streaming experience available anywhere, and for us, this is just the beginning.”