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From the popularity of Chopin to the proliferation of piano music, how are people in 2024 listening to classical music?
Apple Music and Spotify Wrapped have both now shared the top streamed artists of the year. In a year that proved once again women’s power over the pop charts, Taylor Swift was a prominent entry on both sets of lists, topping both album lists.
It’s been a great year in the streaming charts for the likes of Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, and Chappell Roan, with impressive showings also from male artists like Kendrick Lamar and Benson Boone.
If this list seems a little obvious, then it only takes a short canter over to the data from Apple’s classical music platform Apple Music Classical to see that things are even more stolid over there.
Frédéric Chopin, the 19th century Polish composer shows up in the top five most streamed albums list not once, but twice.
Launched last year and expanded to Asia in January 2024, Apple Music Classical was created to solve the problem of music streaming services not being designed to suit fans of the genre. While pop music fans usually listen to just the original version of a song, fans of classical composers from before the era of recorded music usually prefer to choose between renditions of pieces by contemporary(ish) performers.
As a result, the most listened to classical albums of 2024 include a range of contemporary works and new albums of contemporary performers playing pieces by classical composers.
The five most popular albums on Apple Music Classical in 2024 are:
- ‘Chopin: Études’, Yunchan Lim
- ‘Sleep’, Max Richter
- ‘Saint-Saëns’, Lang Lang, Gina Alice, Gewandhausorchester, Andris Nelsons
- ‘72 Preludes’, Mao Fujita
- ‘Legends, Myths and Lavender’, Stephan Moccio
South Korean virtuoso pianist Yunchan Lim tops the table. The 20-year-old became famous for winning the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition two years ago and his first album since signing with Decca is his performance of Chopin’s two sets of études, totaling 24 pieces.
“Interpreting Chopin’s Etudes was a rewarding challenge, and I am so grateful that these recordings have resonated worldwide,” Lim said of his placement. “I am deeply honored that my latest album is the Top Classical Album of 2024 on Apple Music.”
One of the world’s most beloved composers, Chopin shows up again in the list in fourth place in Mao Fujita’s ‘72 Preludes’. In the album, Japanese pianist Fujita pairs Chopin’s 24 Preludes with three other sets of preludes by Alexander Scriabin and Akio Yashiro.
Between Chopin’s Études and Preludes, there are many of his most immediately identifiable works, balancing the romantic pianist’s ear for both restraint and dextrous melody. Both contemporary performers have produced solid interpretations of Chopin’s work.
Part of Chopin’s enduring fame is that the majority of his work was limited to only the piano. Where other composers from his era regularly composed for entire orchestras, his oeuvre is a testament to the lyrical beauty of the solo piano.
The piano is a strong feature of the Apple Classical charts, featuring as the lead instrument in four of the top five.
Chinese pianist Lang Lang is one of the most recognisable names in contemporary piano. His new album is a collaboration with his wife, the German-Korean pianist Gina Alice Redlinger, alongside the Gewandhausorchester conducted by Andris Nelsons and narration by Jimmy Fallon.
On ‘Saint-Saëns’, Lang combines French romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns’ 1886 opus ‘The Carnival of the Animals’ with performances of works by impressionist composers such as Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.
While all recorded in new versions, these compositions are over a century old. Why have works from the likes of Chopin, Saint-Saëns, and Debussy stayed so relevant to classical lovers all these years later?
The first most obvious reason is their sheer brilliance. It’s hoped that time mostly whittles away lesser names from art history. By this logic, it’s Chopin’s impassioned approach to melody lines that has kept his music in people’s imaginations. It’s also down to exposure though. As we move further away from their respective musical eras, our collective knowledge of romantic composers tightens and we are left with only what musical tidbits have transcended to canon status.
Of the top five, there are also two albums by contemporary composers. Max Richter is possibly the most famous classical composer of the 21st century, depending on whether you include film composers such as John Williams and Hans Zimmer.
Richter’s fame has been helped by the use of his music in film and TV soundtracks. ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ has been featured in Shutter Island, Arrival, and ‘The Last of Us’.
His 2015 album ‘Sleep’ – the only one of the top five not released this year – is Richter’s attempt at an “eight-hour lullaby” intended to be listened to as you go to bed. Its inclusion in the list might say more about the public’s belief in classical as ambient background music more than as a powerful genre in its own right.
Finally, in fifth place is Canadian composer Stephan Moccio’s latest album ‘Legends, Myths and Lavender’. Moccio has featured as a writer on songs from the Weeknd to Miley Cyrus and his minimalist piano-led album is also a soothing tour through the comforting imagery of its title.
The release of Apple Music Classical has certainly made classical music more accessible to its fans than ever, but if the year’s top five is anything to go by, taste in the broad genre is still restricted to a narrow view of it as calming compositions to put on while you are busy doing something else.
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