The catalogue seems pretty comprehensive. Not surprisingly, there are no Hyperion albums. Otherwise, so far, I've found nearly everything I've searched for, albeit that the search results can include surprisingly spurious results. (For example,a search for "bach cantata 4" throws up among the first 10 hits 2 versions of the Christmas oratorio, the Fauré requiem, a Herreweghe album with just 2 tracks from BWV 4, some organ works, Brahms Symphony no 4, and some Stokowski transcriptions.) Sadly, there is no sign of The Erlkings. On the plus side, I was encouraged to find that my test search for a fairly obscure item ("shirley-quirk silent noon") led me straight to the relevant album.
The collection also includes jazz. It looks as if other categories of music are only included if there is a connection, albeit tenuous, with the classical (or jazz) world. For example a search for "west side story" lists numerous albums by classical and jazz singers which include songs from the musical, but the only complete albums are the unsatisfactory one with Carreras, etc. conducted by Bernstein and an album from the Spielberg film. A search for "flanders swann" lists compilation albums including, for example, Bryn Terfel singing about glorious mud and Ian Wallace about a wart hog. There are many albums containing Beatles songs but nothing actually performed by The Beatles.
The display of information about each album is similar to what is shown on the Presto website and therefore much better than on Apple Music. Track lists and the "now playing" display show the full title and performers and timing for each track,
Another good feature is that it's possible to get at complete lists of works by individual composers. So, for example, just as on the prestomusic website, I can easily reach a very long list of "all works" by Haydn and choose just the one Baryton trio that I've always wanted to hear!
There are major disappointments:
- The "Collection" feature seems to be a just another name for "Favourites". In other words it's just a single collection of albums, artists, labels and articles with no categorisation.
- The app doesn't handle individual works as well as I hoped. Although it is possible to search for a work, the results that are listed are albums containing the work. (Primephonic used to list recordings of the work along with the timing of each performance). Also, so far as I can see, it is not possible to ask the app to stop playing at the end of a work. (Given that the Presto website allows works to be purchased as individual items, I find it surprising that the app is not better in this respect.)
- I've not seen a "play next" feature
- There is no sign of playlists
- perhaps it's not surprising but there is no sign of anything like Maestro or Ludwig.
