Antonio José

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Antonio José (December 12, 1902 – October 10, 1936) was a Spanish composer.

He was born Antonio José Martínez Palacios in Burgos, but later dropped his surnames. He became a music teacher at a Jesuit school, and conducted the city choir in Burgos. His friends included Federico García Lorca and Salvador Dalí. Maurice Ravel apparently said of José: "He will become the Spanish composer of our century." Nevertheless, José's music lay forgotten until the 1980s. His most famous work is the Sonata for guitar, written in 1933 for Regino Sainz de la Maza, but not published until 1990. The Sonata is perhaps the finest of sonatas for the guitar written in the 20th Century.

José met the same fate as Lorca - he was executed by a Falangist firing squad in 1936.