Apple Classical Music launching

Current Qobuz user and I just pre-ordered Apple Music for this.

I think a lot of the appeal of a dedicated Classical music service is discovery or context when listening/searching.  For instance, if I want to listen to and investigate a Shostakovich piano trio, I'd like to be able to see all the versions available and some background on each.  Also, some like to focus on a conductor or a particular symphony orchestra or a lead musician rather than the composer of a work.  There are also catalog numbers.  It's just a different environment.

I have the free Idagio account but never use it.  Qobuz hasn't been terrible re: classical but the onus is on the end user to really know what they are searching for.

I am concerned that the streaming quality of the Apple Music plan won't be great or that I'll have trouble integrating it into my system.

JS

@kiwiscott -- I use Qobuz through LMS (Logitech Media Server) and am able to easily build playlists that include albums without having to add track by track.  It also integrates my local collection along with Qobuz material.

And, while I don't build many playlists on Qobuz directly, I was also able to do this through a web broswer at play.qobuz.com.   I just experimented and had no problem quickly starting a Qobuz playlist and added several complete albums with just a few clicks.  LMS can also use these playlists.

Not sure what problem you are having.

Qobuz was relatively good, compared to other services, about Classical.  I dropped them for other reasons.  Apple has been okay but definitely more of a pop music mentality in terms of Artist vs Composer, whole works vs. songs, etc.  I can get where I want on Apple but it takes more effort.  Apple catalog is at least as broad, possibly broader as I found a few albums there that I couldn’t find on Qobuz.  I suspect that Apple’s big innovation will be an improved search engine with essentially the same catalog 

@mlsstl all I want is to be able to put a list of albums together for specific purposes like ‘Late Night Listening’, ‘dinner with friends’ etc. I would like to be able to view those albums by ‘purpose’ and then play just that album. 
 

adding an album to a playlist is easy but I really want to be able to say ‘play this album’. Playing the album is easy but organizing my custom list of albums isn’t right now. 

@kiwiscott -- still not sure what you are asking for other than perhaps a software program that can read what mood you're in.  In a way, isn't that what a playlist is?  A preselected collection of these albums for background music when you have friends over for dinner, or those albums when you want a late night session?

To be honest, I don't use playlists all that much since what I'm interested in at any particular moment varies so widely. As such, I use Favorites on Qobuz a lot more than Playlists.