Apple Music Classical Just Scored a Front-Row Seat at Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
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Apple’s classical music service is taking a page out of the main Apple Music playbook in a landmark new partnership that will premiere live concert recordings on Apple Music Classical — with all the royalties going straight to the performing artists.
London’s venerable Wigmore Hall, which hosts hundreds of world-class chamber music concerts each year, is relaunching its label, Wigmore Hall Live, as a digital-only platform — and partnering exclusively with Apple Music Classical as its streaming service of choice.
The move comes as Wigmore Hall, which was opened in 1901, celebrates its 125th anniversary, and marks over two decades of publishing recordings under its own label, having become the first concert hall to do so in 2005.
According to Gramophone, the digital-only platform will adopt “a new artist-first model” where it will cover the full production costs for every release, taking no share of the recording income and passing on 100% of the streaming royalties received directly to the performing artists. While the recordings will eventually become available more widely, Apple Music Classical will have three months of exclusivity for each new release.
Wigmore Hall Live will release four digital-only recordings per year, developed in close collaboration with artists and drawn from live performances at the Hall. Under a new partnership with Apple Music Classical each new Wigmore Hall Live release will première exclusively on the platform for three months.
Gramophone
The first recording under the new deal will drop this Friday, June 5, featuring pianist Boris Giltburg from when he performed Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Nos. 4, 8, 9, 20 (“Pathétique”) and 26 (“Les Adieux”) live at Wigmore Hall in February 2025. An artist commentary track from Giltburg will also be released alongside it to offer “deeper insight into the repertoire.” The pre-release album is already live on Apple Music Classical, with a preview of Piano Sonata No. 9 available to stream.
“Wigmore Hall Live has always sought to capture something unique – the intimacy and spontaneity of live performance in the Hall,” Director John Gilhooly told Gramophone. “We are delighted to partner with Apple Music Classical. Its advanced sound quality will allow listeners everywhere to experience Wigmore Hall concerts as close to the live event as possible. Central to all of this are our artists and our new model for Wigmore Hall Live gives us the opportunity to support their recordings and to share their exceptional artistry with audiences around the world.”
Apple Music Classical debuted in March 2023, following Apple’s 2021 acquisition of classical music streaming service Primephonic. It’s more of an app than a service — a focused version of Apple Music that allows classical music fans to view it through a more appropriate lens. Apple Music Classical organizes works by movements, tracks, orchestras, conductors, soloists, and even instruments, none of which have any relevance to mainstream pop music.
Nevertheless, there’s also a back-end service element. Apple isn’t just presenting classical music tracks in a different way; it’s also added composer biographies, curated playlists, deep-dive guides for key works, time-synced listening guides and curated stations, and more. It’s an unrivalled one-stop shop for the classical music aficionado.
