Antonio José Martínez Palacios (12 December 190211 October 1936), professionally known as Antonio José, was a Spanish composer. Maurice Ravel apparently said of Antonio José: "He will become ''the'' Spanish composer of our century", however, his music lay forgotten until the 1980s.

Career

Born in

Burgos Burgos () is a city in Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Burgos. Burgos is situated in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, on the confluence of ...

, Antonio José became a music teacher at a Jesuit school and conducted the city choir in Burgos. The sheer volume of his work (he died at 33) was prodigious. He penned his first composition when he was 14. He was hired as a director of a musical review in Burgos at the age of 18. He wrote extensively for voice in his quest to present the melodies of his native Burgos to the world. His compositions, especially the ''Sinfonía castellana'' and ''Suite Ingenua'', put his orchestration on a par with anything at the time in the twentieth century. His most famous work is a sonata for

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

. His harmonic understanding put him in the forefront of post-impressionist composers, and though a disciple of Ravel, his particular voice and choice of medium set him distinctly apart. His chief biographer, Miguel Ángel Palacios Garoz, points out that Antonio José was not only a prolific composer but a writer with an intellectually facile mind that was open to influences from all fronts of contemporary music.

Death

In 1936 he was detained in Burgos. He was executed by a

Falangist Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...

firing squad Execution by firing squad, in the past sometimes called fusillading (from the French ''fusil'', rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in times of war. Some reasons for its use are that firearms are ...

at Estépar,

province of Burgos The Province of Burgos is a province of northern Spain, in the northeastern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Palencia, Cantabria, Vizcaya, Álava, La Rioja, Soria, Segovia, and Valladoli ...

. Like

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

, who met a similar fate, his remains have yet to be identified.

Recordings

''Sinfonía castellana, Evocaciones, El mozo de mulas'', Spanish Classics, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Conductor:

Alejandro Posada Alejandro Posada Gómez (born in Bogotá 1960) is a Colombian conductor. Education Posada studied in Colombia and Austria. Career In 1992 Posada won second prize at the Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition. In 2002 he was ap ...

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best ab ...

2003.

References

Sources

*Gilardino, Angelo (1990). ''Introduction to Antonio José 'Sonata' ''. Ancona: Berbèn. *Palacios Garoz, Miguel Ángel (2002). ''En tinta roja: cartas y otros escritos de Antonio José''. Burgos: Instituto Municipal de Cultura. 1902 births 1936 deaths People from Burgos Spanish classical composers 20th-century classical composers People executed by Spain by firing squad Victims of the White Terror (Spain) Executed Spanish people Spanish male classical composers 20th-century Spanish musicians 20th-century Spanish male musicians {{Spain-composer-stub