The promising young composer Antonio José Martínez Palacios, known in musical circles simply as Antonio José, was executed, a victim of the Spanish Civil War, in the same year as Federico García Lorca. Rooted in the folk songs and rhythms of the composer’s native Burgos, Antonio José’s compositions reveal a talent for refined orchestration and a taste for colour and atmosphere characteristic of French impressionism. The evocative Sinfonía castellana, written in a lyrical, late-Romantic idiom with touches of Debussy, uses traditional Burgos folk-songs to create a distinctive and personal style without recourse to purely literal quotation.