One of the dedicated classical streaming music services has been bought, and will join one of the big players in streaming globally.
While streaming music services like Spotify and Apple Music are always growing, it can feel like their catalogues don’t cover every genre in a perfectly balanced way.
There’s plenty of pop and rock and dance and such — the regular assortment of what might be construed as popular music over the past fifty years — but if you’re looking for a niche recording in a specific genre, you might struggle to get it. As it is, this reviewer and listener can’t find a few jazz recordings in any service, telling you that some styles and their respective catalogues and libraries haven’t been perfectly catered for like with others.
The big services excel for various reasons, but depending on the style you want to listen to, a dedicated service may do the job better.
It’s partly what has helped niche services come to life, providing fans of specific genres the ability to listen to music the big players aren’t doing as well, and catering their streams to that style.
In the world of classical music, Idagio and Primephonic offered online listeners a chance to get a specifically classical sound in their streaming subscriptions, but one of these is going away. It may even improve.
This week, Apple announced it was buying Primephonic, with plans to integrate the classical-only music service with its own, building a classical music app for Apple Music for next year.
“We love and have a deep respect for classical music, and Primephonic has become a fan favourite for classical enthusiasts,” said Oliver Schusser, Vice President of Apple Music and Beats.
“Together, we’re bringing great new classical features to Apple Music, and in the near future, we’ll deliver a dedicated classical experience that will truly be the best in the world.”
Apple’s plans for Primephonic include bringing the service’s playlists to Apple Music, as well as a dedicated app in the future, allowing you to search by composer and repertoire, with more features and benefits including metadata for classical music, in case you want to get into the nitty gritty about performances and recordings. It’s not just Mozart or Vivaldi, but who played it, when, and more.
With Apple Music’s support for music with Dolby Atmos spatial audio and lossless sound, it may even improve what Primephonic’s classical speciality can add to the streaming world, delivering more resolution and fidelity to streaming subscribers over Apple’s service.
However, it does mean that Primephonic will be disappearing, with the service going offline as early as next week, from September 7, with no new customers being taken from now until then. In the meantime, its customers have been provided six months of Apple Music, which could be just the right amount of time for Apple to get its classical music app operational.
