Apple acquired BIS Records, a major Swedish classical music label, as the tech giant bulks up its Apple Music Classical library.
“After 50 years, BIS Records is proud to announce that we have joined the Apple family,” said the label in a tweet posted yesterday. “In this way, the musical treasures of our extensive catalog will be further enhanced and preserved.”
Apple Music Classical launched on March 2021, after Apple bought Primephonic, a classical music streaming service. It is a companion app to Apple Music that focuses on creating a visible streaming space for classical music fans featuring thousands of tracks. Users can search by composers and different works to create playlists of their favorite renditions.
BIS Records’ website hosts a message from Robert von Bahr, president of BIS Records, detailing the acquisition.
“We thought long and hard on how to maintain and build upon our prestigious history and looked for a partner who would further our mission, as well as an increased global platform to bring classical music to new audiences all over the world,” Bahr said.
In 1973, Bahr founded BIS Records to preserve classical music, particularly underrepresented works of contemporary and early pieces. The label recorded the complete works of Sibelius, Kalevi Aho, Christian Lindberg, Geirr Tveitt, and James MacMillian, to name a few. BIS Records aimed to capture classical music with exceptional audio quality. Apple Music Classical streams work with a high audio quality of up to 192 kHz/24-bit Hi-Res Lossless, which Apple designed to enhance audio to maintain the details of a song.
Apple was not immediately available for comment, though Bahr’s post says the entire BIS Records team has been retained. The label’s entire 2,250 title catalog is now available on Apple Music Classical. A subscription costs $10.99 for an Individual plan.