Primephonic which has been replatforming has announced the large scale launch of its classical music streaming service in the US, UK and the Netherlands. Primephonic’s catalogue contains over 1 million tracks from Warner Classics, Sony Classical, Universal Music Classical, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon and EMI and another 400+ labels from around the world. The company believes that classical music lovers can finally stream and download nearly all classical music that has ever been recorded in CD-quality.
‘As a classical music lover myself, I have often experienced the frustrations of listening to classical music on today’s existing streaming services,’ said Thomas Steffens, CEO, Primephonic. ‘Streaming has revolutionized the way the world listens to music, but it has failed to revolutionize classical music. There is a strong need among classical listeners for a streaming service that not only delivers an enriching streaming experience, but also to provides a fair revenue model that supports classical artists. Primephonic aims to do just that, and finally usher in a new era for classical music in the digital age.’
With thousands of composers, thousands of performers, similar titles, multiple movements within those titles, and music that dates back hundreds of years, the classical music streaming problem is a particularly challenging one. Primephonic solves classical music’s streaming challenge by addressing the key elements that matter most to the classical music listener:
- A search functionality designed for classical music. Searching by composer, work, artist, musical period, and genre, offers greater ease of use to navigate the vast catalogue of classical music.
- High resolution audio quality (up to 24-bit lossless) with adaptive bit-rate technology powered by Orastream).
- In-depth background information and dynamic content, including many stories and anecdotes about composers, recordings, and artists, to enrich the classical experience.
Additional features
- Specially curated playlists that dive deeper into every musical curiosity and obsession, from medieval to minimalism, icons and oddballs, for the car or the gym.
- Side-by-side comparison feature called Works, that allows the listener to compare different recordings of the same work with a single click.
- Primephonic’s catalogue includes the latest releases, available on the day of release of each recording, as well as access to exclusive pre-releases.
Primephonic also believes in offering a business model that provides maximum returns for artists in the classical music industry. The service has designed a pay-per-second model to ensure a fair payout model that considers the longer duration of classical music works.
Primephonic offers a 30 day free trial, and two subscription tiers. The premium subscription costs $7.99 (MP3 at 320kbps) and the platinum subscription costs $14.99 (up to 24-bit lossless) per month.
Primephonic is available now on iOS, a web player and on Android in the autumn of 2018.
