The app was automatically loaded to my iPhone at 10 p.m. EDT on Monday. First impression is that it seems a lot like a skin on a subset of Apple Music.
First search test did not inspire confidence.
- Typed “Beethoven symphony 2” (sans quotes) in the search box and the works (as opposed to albums) listed were the composer’s symphonies nos. 5, 9, 6, 7 and 3 along with, I assume, the number of recordings or tracks of each.
- Under that is a See All Works link. Selecting it takes you to a page that lists the symphonies as above followed by 8, 2 (finally!), 1, 4 and 10 (?!).
- Select 2 and you’re presented with a preliminary list of recordings, including an unexplained/unjustified Editor’s Choice (Berlin Phil under Rattle, no thanks), followed by a list of five Popular Recordings and a See All link.
- Select that and you finally get to the list of 500-odd albums that can be sorted by Popularity (the default), Name, Release Date or Duration. Lots of big name European and American orchestras under big name conductors, though you’ll have scroll through several screens before you come across a period instrument performance (Gardiner’s, with Savall's excellent performance coming a few more screens below that).
This is lame from start to finish and not that much better than Apple Music.
I used to subscribe to Idagio. Searching it for Beethoven symphony 2 presented you with a results page in two parts: a list of all the recordings and another list of the ensembles, the conductors and, for things like concertos and chamber music, the individual musicians. You want to hear Toscanini’s recording with the NBC Symphony Orchestra? You select NBC or Toscanini and bingo.
Searching Apple Classical for Turandot turns up scads of albums and tracks (all together in a single list…) but not the recently released major Warner recording with Radvanovsky and Kaufmann. To get that, I had to type Turandot Pappano (the conductor). Neither it nor the recently released William Christie-conducted Platée from Vienna had liner notes, let alone libretti. For new recordings, Idagio often had both in PDF format.
First impressions, I admit, but so far a disappointment. Plus, though there's lots of stuff in lossless and hi-res, I've no way to play it back in anything but mid-res (Sonos and AirPod Pros).
