I’m a classical musician and listener as well as iOS app developer who loves Apple so this app seemed too good to be true for me, and unfortunately it isn’t true. It’s close, and I like being able to look through recordings of a specific work and save works as a whole, and mostly I just like the huge library and high quality audio. But there are many issues:1. If you go to the work page for Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major, the list of tracks don’t have the violinist in the name ANYWHERE. sometimes it even has a cellist because there is also a cello concerto on the album. Violinist needs to be first, then conductor/orchestra. 2. You can’t share individual tracks, only full recordings. Makes it hard to share with friends. 3. (This is a big one for me) In the Library section, you lose the big album tiles and the “recently added” section that Apple Music has. I really want that back, it helps me look through for what I want to listen to. You also can’t edit the list of sections, while you can on Apple Music. Overall the first point disappointed me because that should be the whole benefit of a specifically classical music app, and the third point disappointed me because it’s not as good as Apple Music. I also really want a Mac app. I hope that this app improves, and I’m giving it 4 stars rather than lower because I do think it has potential and I want to see it grow into itself.

This is SO much better for classical music fans than the regular Apple Music app. Thank you very much for doing this. Love that there are curated playlists, recommended new albums with some editorial info about them (would love even more of that). Playlists and “track by track” feature are a pleasure (adds a lot to hear Yo Yo Ma explain something about what he’s playing and also share his playlist with you). Over time I hope you add much more of that. A couple suggestions: an iPad version would be great; also it can be a bit overwhelming when looking for a particular work to scroll through all the performance options. In addition to sorting by release date or popularity, how about an option to put artists that I’ve already starred as favorites first since those are who I am most likely to pick. Also, would love to shuffle my classical library or playlist by work rather than track or album (i.e., all movements of a piece in order without listening to the whole album, then move to the next). Overall, a great addition I have hope for for a long time. Thank you.

First, there is no excuse for the fact that the normal Music app can not do the right thing when listening to classical music. Note that the same could be said of jazz or other musical styles. Are we going to need an app for each genre? Then, to top it off, it is a phone app that does not adapt to the iPad well at all. Wasting space and just generally a bad experience. Why do I talk about the iPad? Well, when reading a book, I like to listen to music. I don’t do this on my iPhone but rather my iPad. It is far better for this task. So, not only do I need a second Apple Music app but it is not even well done with respect to the iPad. Oh, and it glitched a few times while playing my word game - a game that has no sound and I have always played music while playing the game. (Then again, Apple Music sometimes glitches while reading a book… have not tried that with Apple Classical yet) I was hoping for something far better but it barely is worth the frustration to address some serious weaknesses in the Apple Music app. It really should have been just adding those features to Apple Music. At least it would have been iPad optimized that way. Very disappointed in Apple - especially since they normally deliver a much better user experience.

I’ve been listening to soundtracks by Nicholas Britell on the regular music app. I would classify most (if not all) of his work as contemporary classical. Yet when I switched to the Apple Music Classical app, I noticed a concerning similarity to which of Nicholas Britell’s very classical-sounding soundtracks did not appear on the classical app. They were the soundtracks for works with predominantly Black (African-American) casts, and dealing with Black themes Namely “Moonlight”, “If Beale Street Could Talk”, and “The Underground Railroad” . I want to assume that poorly programmed algorithms edited out these albums. Regardless of how this came to be, this should be looked into because obviously some human biases were programmed into the selection process. I would posit that Britell’s soundtracks for “Succession” are far less “classical” than the soundtracks that I mentioned above; however, they appear on the Classical app. While all of his soundtracks do not appear on the Classical App, it is very suspicious all three of his work for films and series focused on Black/African American experiences have been omitted. With the exception of “The Free State of Jones” which deals with the topic of slavery in America, however, Matthew McConaughey, a White man, is the only face on the album art.