Martin Jones (piano) Nimbus Records NI 5889/90 (2 CDs) ***

The long-lived Spanish composer Óscar Esplá (1886 or 1889- 1976) was born in Alicante, and is best-known for having taken inspiration from Spanish Levantine folk music – in 1911, his orchestral Suite levantine was awarded a major prize by a jury that included Saint-Saëns and Richard Strauss. Martin Jones's two-disc chronological selection of solo piano works written between 1905 and 1940 shows this younger contemporary of Falla as a mild-mannered composer whose Spanish-flavoured music steered a course well clear of the turbulent musical developments of his time. In small doses, even though Jones downplays its harmonic richness, the music is attractive enough to make one wonder why it hasn't made more headway in live performance. See url.ie/6c45