Classical Archives

Two words to make this app better: Material design! Seriously, CA is the best resource I've ever seen for classical music streaming, but this app is a tragedy. Besides the terrible design, it lacks offline functionality, it's not intuitive and crashes all the time. It's sad to see such a great resource student because of a poorly made app.

This is a great resource, but ruined by an Android app that fails about half the time. It skips tracks, often times just deletes a whole playlist right in the middle for no apparent reason, and on and on with the frustrating issues. And heaven forbid you get a phone call or a mtg notification - major snafu will ensue! Bottom line, I dread using it.

Dreadful app and no effort to improve it on the part of the Archives.

The app could have a wonderful potential. A great collection of albums, in particular classical old performance. However, hearing an album is a pain. The list gets empty, the streaming is unstable (in situation where other streaming services were great). It was said that you can download, but no, you cannot, the option of off-line listening is only by buying mp3 files (something like more than $10 per piece). My feeling that the app is aimed to that. You want to hear reasonably? Pay for the subscription and then much more daily. After enforced listening to the same first chapter 5 times in a failed effort to listen to the full concerto, I canceled my subscription.

Classical Archives is wonderful, anything you want before World War 1, with some recent or noneuropean composers mixed in. Great on a laptop, but the app is terrible. When will you finally fix this!? You can tell it to play an album or opus and it will immediately skip every track. A lot of people want listen on their phones - help us use the service you're trying to provide!

I'm happy to have found Classical Archive and use it on the Android app, Sonos, and PC browser. No sign yet of the app behaviors reported here, so I may have to revise this review later if they crop up.

There is nice selection of music with navigation user interface that is specially designed to accommodate classical music. However, the player is a bit buggy. For example, if I pause a track and try to start again, it immediately jumps to the next track. I have been a user of Classical Archives for a long time, so I hope these issues get fixed and this will be a great app.

I subscribed to Classical Archives for years, but this Android app is full of bugs. It loses my playlist whenever I fast fwd and simply quits at other times. Apparently they still believe everyone sits at their computer to listen to music. When they fix it and provide Chromecast support, I shall gladly subscribe again.

Google description says you can download when in fact you cannot.

No composers such as john ireland

This is a great resource, but ruined by an Android app that fails about half the time. It skips tracks, often times just deletes a whole playlist right in the middle for no apparent reason, and on and on with the frustrating issues. And heaven forbid you get a phone call or a mtg notification - major snafu will ensue! Bottom line, I dread using it.

Google description says you can download when in fact you cannot.

It's always frustrating when a terrific resource - like CA - is held back by a mediocre app. This app needs to be better designed and work more intuitively. Eg.: choose to search for a piece/performer etc. and get all the albums, rather than hundreds of tracks. Now that makes sense. Think about starting fresh rather than tweaking this app. Great resource. Needs a MUCH better app, expecially considering that these days more of us are probably accessing the service via mobile than desktop.

This app allows to SELECT what work you want to listen to in this gigantic library! (So it's not a radio!) Two main modes: In The Library mode, you can select the performance (album) of the work you want to listen to. To do this in The Library, either select The Greats for quick access to the really greatest composers, or you can search by composer name. In the Must Know mode, you are presented with the latest releases of the most important works. Again two methods: by the Must Know composers, or you can search for these "must know" works by Period and/or Genre (like Late-/Post-Romantic + Stage/Opera). The app's Queuing Player is beautiful to look at and allows you to add many tracks, even complete works, to be played one after the other. New! Now with playlists management! Cool!

Very handy extension of my C.A. subscription to android devices. Would be still more useful if it supported streaming to chromecast & similar devices...

using Android 4.. Download buffer too small. Drops connections. Deletes/clears whole stored play lists regularly. Hangs at the end of a track. Have to press 'end' to get to next track. Times-out after 30 minutes. Sometimes deletes whole queue when forcing end of a single track.

I wanted to use this mainly for listening to music whilst driving. The first problem is that the streaming quality is poor. It might be ok for listening to samples but its no good for anything serious listening. Secondly the app itself isn't that good. For example searching for "Harry Christophers" returns nothing but searching for "Christophers" returns one result of "Harry Christophers"! Once you select a search result you're just presented with a list of tracks with no way, that I could find, to play an album, sort by composer or anything else. ie its a lot less functional that the very good search on the website.

Poor interface

There is nice selection of music with navigation user interface that is specially designed to accommodate classical music. However, the player is a bit buggy. For example, if I pause a track and try to start again, it immediately jumps to the next track. I have been a user of Classical Archives for a long time, so I hope these issues get fixed and this will be a great app.

I love

great value, but could be clearer about needing to register at their home page After that, its very easy to use.

The app needs some work on usability; it takes a while to find one's way... Worst is the freezing of tracks for no apparent reason. I use "Slacker" (streaming music) and do not experience this with that app. The site and the effort are outstanding; I hope they continue to develop this app for Android users. ~ Bobby

Terrific app and well worth the membership. Can't wait for album play upgrade.

I have been a member for 20+ years, going back to MHS, which this organization is an evolution of. I have 1,000 CD's, listen only to .WAV files, and have been listening to classical music since I was 17: I am now 60. This app has changed my daily music listening experience. For one week now, I have been listening three hours per day to Haydn masses and other sacred works. And then another week for 1/2 of his string quartets! Huge breadth of composition choices of great Western composers including great minor ones such as Henry Purcell. AND you can choose the conductor and performers for each composition! Hopefully, the app in future will add tweaks. It needs a menu and settings for functions such as "clear queue." The functions now are more or less intuitive but also hidden. Nevertheless, this is such a robust app that I am giving it five stars. There is so much music here, that I'll be listening at least for a year, hours per day, to say nothing of repeating works. Bravo ClassicalArchives! Kurt Jensen

I'm in heaven!

Excellent.

Excellent, well-organized collection, and very good audio quality. I gave a previous version three stars because of a problem with gaps between individual tracks, but the issue's resolved now.

What a unique resource, this comprehensive treasure house of great performances of great works. In addition to the quality and quantity of its content, this app (and the associated website) is uniquely well-organized, an attribute that leverages its value enormously. As a professional conductor and music educator, I am sharing this indispensable resource with colleagues and students so they may avail themselves of this standoutportal into music's world of beauty and inspiration. Thank you, Classical Archives, for making the gift of great music so easy to access and enjoy!

I've been anticipating this app for years, and it's a good start. I'd like to see an album-oriented option as well. Perhaps selecting an album cover would display all its tracks and permit queuing any or all, as can be done with the PC application. Also, it would be nice if composer name searches did not require correct accent marks. (It took me a while to find Bartok.)

This app allows to SELECT what work you want to listen to in this gigantic library! (So it's not a radio!) Two main modes: In The Library mode, you can select the performance (album) of the work you want to listen to. To do this in The Library, either select The Greats for quick access to the really greatest composers, or you can search by composer name. In the Must Know mode, you are presented with the latest releases of the most important works. Again two methods: by the Must Know composers, or you can search for these "must know" works by Period and/or Genre (like Late-/Post-Romantic + Stage/Opera). The app's Queuing Player is beautiful to look at and allows you to add many tracks, even complete works, to be played one after the other. New! Now with playlists management! Cool!

Beautifully designed: simple and yet very comprehensive. The queuing player is a real plus!

Basically on the app's player when several music files are added this happens (Example): 1. Player plays the first music file (File 1) 2. When it's done it doesn't start to play the next music file (File 2) 3. I manually press the next button and the player skips File 2 and starts playing File 3 4 When File 3 is done, again it does not automatically play File 4. 5. Again I manually press the next button and the player skips File 4 and starts playing File 5 This happens whether: 1. I'm plyaing music files added manually. 2. I'm playing a "featured" playlist. 3. I'm playing a newly created playlist. So in other words, all the time.

Download this app if you'd like to learn about the best classical music, expertly curated!

Good looking interface and wide collection of tracks.

Great application with lots of great music!

At last! Fantastic!! This app allows to SELECT what work you want to listen to in this gigantic library! (So it's not a radio!) Two main modes: In The Library mode, you can select the performance (album) of the work you want to listen to. To do this in The Library, either select The Greats for quick access to the really greatest composers, or you can search by composer name. In the Must Know mode, you are presented with the latest releases of the most important works. Again two methods: by the Must Know composers, or you can search for these "must know" works by Period and/or Genre (like Late-/Post-Romantic + Stage/Opera). The app's Queuing Player is beautiful to look at and allows you to add many tracks, even complete works, to be played one after the other. New! Now with playlists management! Cool!

A great start I've been anticipating this app for years, and it's a good start. I'd like to see an album-oriented option as well. Perhaps selecting an album cover would display all its tracks and permit queuing any or all, as can be done with the PC application. Also, it would be nice if composer name searches did not require correct accent marks. (It took me a while to find Bartok.)

Extraordinary and Unique!!! What a unique resource, this comprehensive treasure house of great performances of great works. In addition to the quality and quantity of its content, this app (and the associated website) is uniquely well-organized, an attribute that leverages its value enormously. As a professional conductor and music educator, I am sharing this indispensable resource with colleagues and students so they may avail themselves of this standoutportal into music's world of beauty and inspiration. Thank you, Classical Archives, for making the gift of great music so easy to access and enjoy!

Classical Archives app rocks! Download this app if you'd like to learn about the best classical music, expertly curated!

Great app for classical music lovers Beautifully designed: simple and yet very comprehensive. The queuing player is a real plus!