Apple to launch classical music app

American technology company Apple has announced that Apple Music Classical, a new app designed specifically for classical music, will be available for use from 28 March. Currently available for pre-order on the App Store, app users will require an Apple Music subscription to access app content.

The new app will offer users curated playlists and exclusive albums. Offering the world’s largest classical music catalogue in high quality audio (up to 192 kHz/24 bit Hi-Res Lossless), the app’s music catalogue will contain over 5 million tracks from new releases to celebrated masterpieces. Some works will be available in immersive spatial audio.

Launching the app yesterday, Apple described Apple Music Classical as ‘the ultimate classical experience’ and released a trailer for the new app here. The tech company said that it ‘is working closely with some of the most prolific classical music artists and renowned classical music institutions in the world’ to develop this app.

The app will include a search engine optimised for classical titles offering the ability to search by composer, work, conductor, or catalogue number. Each track will include ‘complete and accurate’ metadata plus editorial notes including composer biographies, and guides to key works.

Apple has embarked on an ongoing project, commissioning digital portraits of great composers from a diverse group of artists. Artworks depicting Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin and Johann Sebastian are already available, with each image placing the composer’s likeness alongside artistic references from the relevant classical period.