idagio.com
If you're a fan of classical music, you know that the typical streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music fall short. They have a lot of songs, but they're not tailored to classical music fans. Classical music fans are used to finding only the best tracks, and the streaming apps don't always let you do that. They have personal playlists with popular songs, but classical music fans want their own playlists with only the best stuff.
Classical music should be archived and cataloged differently than most popular genres of music like rock, hip hop, and alternative. Apps like Spotify or Tidal are less than ideal in helping listeners browse the annals of various performances, interpretations, and lesser-known contemporary classical composers. Fans of classical music require a streaming app that caters to the specific nature of the genre.
There are many different performances of classical music, some of which are variations on the same song, movement, symphony, or sonata. Therefore, simply searching for a composer or a sonata movement on mainstream music apps will not always guarantee that you will easily be able to find the particular performance that you are looking for. In fact, on many of the more popular classical music streaming apps, it can be rather difficult to pare down the options and find one specific iteration of a historic classical piece. This is why classical-specific streaming apps have started to pop up all over the place in recent years.
Idagio is one of the newer classical music streaming services on the market, and it's already received a lot of critical acclaim. It looks like this service is only going to get better in the years to come. If you're looking for a great classical music streaming service, Idagio might be your best bet.
History
Today, Idagio was launched by Till Janczukowicz and Christoph Lange, former artist manager and founder of the German streaming service Simfy. When asked what he hoped Idagio would achieve, Janczukowicz said "to offer the ultimate streaming service for classical music worldwide." The official launch of the Idagio iOS app took place at the Salzburg Festival in 2015.
From there, Idagio's focus has been primarily around expanding their archive of classical music. Although their initial archive of classical music was nothing to roll your eyes at, they will not sleep until they do, in fact, become the "ultimate streaming service for classical music," and one of the central accomplishments that will help them get to that point involves acquiring the largest number of classical songs for listeners to choose from.
In December of 2017, Idagio added the entirety of the Sony Classical and Deutsche Grammaphon catalogs to their repertoire. But they didn't stop there - in April of 2018, Idagio announced that it would be taking on a partnership with Warner Classics, offering the streaming service the entirety of the Warner Classics and Erato catalogs.
Idagio, a European classical music streaming service, launched in North America in September of 2018. This added the music from several labels in the Outhere Music Group, expanding the company's ever-growing library of classical music.
In November of 2019, TIME magazine named Idagio as one of the world's best recent inventions. And today, the streaming service has over 2 million songs and claims to add around 20,000 more every week. It looks like Idagio's momentum is unstoppable!
Design
If I'm being honest, Idagio has one of the best app designs that I've ever seen when it comes to music streaming services. It's sleek, intuitive, easy to use, and it looks awesome. If I had to put one word to the aesthetic direction of the app, I would have to go with elegant, not unlike much classical music itself. If you were to somehow dress an app up for a night at the symphony, I suspect that it would end up looking like Idagio.
A sleek black and white theme gives the app a very classic look and feel. But it doesn't get bogged down in nostalgia or classicism by any means. It is every bit as modern and capable as, say, Spotify or Tidal in functionality. You can browse songs easily by subgenre, composer, using a smart search feature, or even by mood. This is one of those rare cases where the app works beautifully as it looks - there's a reason why the app has received an average rating of 4.7 stars (out of 5) on the Apple App Store from the nearly 7 thousand people who reviewed it.
Content
Idagio has a lot to offer today's classical music fan. Additionally, Idagio has tons of great content for fans of classical music specifically. I love the way you can browse songs by mood, because it means you don't always have to know exactly what you want to hear. By browsing their expertly curated playlists by mood, you can easily and conveniently discover what you actually wanted to hear, no matter how familiar you were with the music beforehand.
Idagio has a great function that I love - one that makes so much sense for classical music streaming app. It's called offshoots, and it lets you easily compare multiple recordings of the same song with no effort necessary. Just browse offshoots of a track to quickly jump between performances, interpretations, conductors, etc. This is one of those features that truly does make this app great.
Don't worry if you enjoyed the Discover Weekly feature of Spotify - Idagio has its own spin on this too. Enjoy a weekly personalized classical playlist based on your listening habits, making it hard not to find great new classical music that you love.
Idagio provides a variety of ways for you to get involved with the classical music community. Among other features, you can enjoy exclusive playlists created by experts and talented artists themselves. This app is convenient and enjoyable to use, making it an excellent way to explore the classical music scene
Desktop and Mobile Experience
I definitely recommend using the app. The desktop version of the streaming service is not terrible at all; it's just not as good as the app. It's often the case when it comes to music streaming services - the app is much easier and more streamlined to use.
There isn't really a clear difference between the web and app versions of Idagio, though both have their pros and cons. I would say go with the app if you're able to, but you're not going to be disappointed with the desktop version either. All features are still there, they just aren't as pretty or easy to use in the app version.
Pricing and Plans
Idagio offers a two-tiered subscription service. You can choose between Idagio Premium and Idagio Premium Plus. Everything that I have already mentioned comes with an Idagio Premium account, and that will run you $10 a month. However, if you want an even better bang for your buck, perhaps you should try Idagio Premium Plus for only $12.99 a month.
With the Premium Plus service, you also get offline listening, the ability to create your own playlists (which isn't included in the basic premium service), high-quality lossless streaming (16-bit FLAC), and the ability to connect to 3rd-party devices like Sonos, Chromecast, and Bluesound.
Suggestions that I have for Idagio
I don't think it's a good idea for Idagio to offer a second tier of subscription for how little is offered in return, not to mention how insignificantly more expensive it is (roughly $3 more per month). Why not just make the basic premium subscription cost, say, $12 a month, and offer everything that Premium+ has at that singular price? I find it bothersome that I need to pay an extra $3 a month if I want to be able to create my own playlists? Isn't that a very fundamental feature of a streaming app?
Conclusion
I tried Idagio today and it is definitely one of the best classical music streaming apps out there. There are some areas where it could use improvement, but overall I am very impressed with how well it functions.
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