Christóbal Halffter (born 1930) was the most prominent of the group of composers who emerged in Spain in the 1950s, rejecting the folk-music orientation of earlier 20th-century Spanish composers and entering into the mainstream of European composition.

Christóbal Halffter, born in Madrid, was the nephew of Ernesto and Rodolfo Halffter, both prominent composers. Christóbal studied at the Madrid Conservatory; his gift for composing was discovered early, and he won numerous prizes while still a student. His earliest works, such as the Antifonia Pascual (1952) followed the spare Spanish style of Manuel de Falla and of some of his uncle's compositions. Others, such as the 1951 Piano Sonata and the 1956 Mass were in the tradition of Igor Stravinsky's neoclassicism. Halffter's Dos Movimientos (1956) for timpani and string orchestra, strongly influenced by Béla Bartók, won a prize in a contest for young composers sponsored...