Does Apple Music support the classical music listener?

Here's how to show composer on your iphone and PC.

On the iphone, in Library hit "Edit" and you will see a radio button for composer. Hit it and be happy.

In iTunes on your PC, left click the column headings, From the list, select "Composer" and smile.

On my PC, I am a nut about editing the composer name to make sure works by Bach JS are all in the same place. Select the movements, left click "Get Info" and in the composer field enter "Bach JS". All the selected records will have the same composer.

Now on my iphone I am still challenged how to play a piece without having to "shuffle" through movements

Have not checked yet with Music, but one of the issues I had with iTunes Radio was the extremely limited classical music choices. But that reflects the overall music availability...we no longer have a classical FM station in the Washington, DC area. Sirius/XM has many more Country selections than Classical.

Give Apple feedback about this at http://www.apple.com/feedback as we may see some movement if enough of us speak up.

Ralph Landry1 wrote:

Have not checked yet with Music, but one of the issues I had with iTunes Radio was the extremely limited classical music choices. But that reflects the overall music availability...we no longer have a classical FM station in the Washington, DC area. Sirius/XM has many more Country selections than Classical.

Give Apple feedback about this at http://www.apple.com/feedback as we may see some movement if enough of us speak up.

You can get your classical fix from http://www.wqxr.org. New York Public Radio now owns it, and they have a huge grant from the JL Greene Foundation to provide streaming services for all of their actual stations, as well as dedicated streams for subsets of the genre, including "Q2" for living composers, Operavore - all opera, all the time, and The Jonathan Channel, 24 hours a day of Jonathan Schwartz and his American Songbook. There's also a wqxr app and a wnyc app. The wnyc app includes a number of streams also, as well as real time FM and AM channels and current podcasts.

Satellite XM at least has 3 classical channels, which are useful when the public stations are begging. And for traveling long distances by car where cell signals aren't guaranteed. (And use up data quickly).

The real issue I have with classical presentation on any streaming service, be it Apple radio, Pandora or any of the others, is they don't do random correctly for any music that has more than one movement. If I want to hear Bizet's Symphony in C for example, I want to hear ALL of it, not just one movement. So I really have no interest at all in Apple Radio or any of its competitors.

Yes, it most definitely does. Go to the New tab and change the genre to Classical. Then you will see quite a bit of classical music to try. You can of course search for classical composers and musicians and find a wide selection of music.

I have been a Spotify user for 2 years. I've been comparing the two and every album I have in Spotify, I've been able to find on Apple Music. I also miss the shared playlist feature that Spotify offers, but hopefully they will add that soon. The feature that is most compelling to me is that I have a huge library of music in iTunes. Probably 80% of that is available on Spotify, but there is still a good chunk of music that isn't on any streaming service. Now with Apple Music I can combine these albums into a single, seamless app. With Spotify I would have to switch between Spotify and iTunes to listen to all of my music. One thing I like to do is create a playlist of music before attending a concert. I would often have one piece missing on Spotify and would have to create another playlist on iTunes to fill in the gap. Now I create just one playlist in Apple Music that combines all the music on the program.

The variety of classical offerings is VERY limited. A mix of the most current releases that have mass market potential and budget recordings of mostly live performances of highly variable audio quality. That and a whole warehouse full of the compilation albums they used to sell on late night TV: 1-2 minute excerpts of music.

The other challenge, noted by others, is that the entire paradigm of online music is "songs" that can be enjoyed in random order ... not a single work in multiple movements. It can be a challenge to organize and maintain the integrity of a single work.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that I don't think anyone at Amazon, Apple, Spotify, iTunes, Apple Music or anywhere else who entered the information on albums and tracks knows the first thing about music. Most of the time, the composer is listed in the Artist field, Or in opera recordings, character names, not artists. And there is no consistency in how sections of a work are Titled. All of this makes searching into a meaningful classical music stream problematic.

I believe you are only browsing the storefront. If you know how to search, there is a deep back catalog of music. I agree that none of these services do a good job of tagging and organizing their music well. But if you know how to find things, there is a huge amount of music. One thing I do is subscribe to a good magazine like Gramophone: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/

I browse the reviews and search for them on Spotify (and now Apple Music) and 70% of the time I will find the recording. Sometimes I'll have to wait a few months for it to appear on the service, but it is a good way to find music.

You may not have heard of them, but also take a look at Qobuz:

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/plans/music-streaming-subscription

They have several plans depending on whether you want to listen to MP3 or CD quality, number of devices etc.

They should have a trial available.

I have, but it isn't available in the US. Is the metadata better than what you see on Spotify or Apple Music?

In general, I find the classical "channel" in Apple Music quite a bit more adventurous that the classical "radio" on Spotify. It is mind-numbing how every other track played there is Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" or Debussy's "Clair de lune" (I guess Spotify likes moonlight) 😉

I also appreciate the Apple classical music playlists dedicated to discovering composers. These should keep me busy for the next three months, as I decide whether or not to switch over from Spotify. Also, the streaming quality is quite good. Best to test different equalizer settings to find the best mix for classical music.

Which composers are you looking for? (I love discovering new music)

I lost all my Classic genre albums (all ripped from CDs, Dvorak, Grieg etc.). About 10 albums perfectly tagged, named etc. Not available in iTunes Store and Apple Music (it means: they are all available as tracks, but in totally different compilations). I lost also a few pop albums (tracks are available in Apple Music, but in compilations like „the best of” etc.).