It’s not simply a matter of what they offer (currently over a million tracks, with 20,000 more added each month), but, rather, how they offer it: Idagio’s interface is at once elegant, easy to navigate and understand, and robust in terms of what you can do with it. Idagio, launched in the United States and Canada last fall, is a new streaming service focusing solely on classical recordings-but focusing on doing it right. There’s 15 centuries of mind-blowing music out there waiting for you to discover it, or rediscover it, or obsess on it-and it doesn’t require a lick of expertise on your part. The upside of all this: It doesn’t have to be this way. Tidal? Same, plus a virtually useless search function. 10 in C Major” as recorded by the virtually unheard-of Pennrose Orchestra on Classical Piano Lullabies Volume 1? (It’s the pastel-color album with a teddy bear on the cover.)Īs far as Spotify goes: Take much of the above, with a slightly more user-friendly interface. Who knew, really, that a highlight of Beethoven’s oeuvre was “Fur Elise Reimagined” by DJ cMellow & Ludwig van Beethoven? And who could have predicted that the second track listed for Mozart would be his “Piano Sonata No. To compound the insults, have a gander at the “Top Songs” listed under any major composer.

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