Esplá, Oscar (born 1886)

Spanish composer. His music, somewhat austere and aristocratic in expression, derives a distinctive Spanish flavour from the composer's own idiosyncratic harmonic language rather than from folk-music materials. The symphonic poem Ciclopes de Ifach (1937), the Sonata del Sur for piano and orchestra (1945), and the Sinfonía Aitana (1963), ‘in memory of tonal music’, are among his most important works.

Espla was born in Alicante. He studied civil engineering before devoting himself to music. He settled in Brussels, Belgium, in 1936 but returned to Spain after the Spanish Civil War.