José Lidon’s life and work build on the tonal and compositional achievements of the late Baroque and point the way to early Romanticism. Like Padre Antonio Soler, Lidon came from a musical family; he was trained in the boys’ choir of the Royal Chapel in Madrid. His teacher, the organist and theorist José de Nebra, had years earlier influenced Soler and probably taught him as well. After early success as organist of Ourense Cathedral, as assistant organist of the Royal Chapel and as director of music to the Countess of Benavente, who was in close contact with Joseph Haydn, Lidon was appointed first organist of the Royal Chapel in 1787.
There he had at his disposal a Jordi Bosch organ of 1778 – the work of the same master who, as a young organ builder, had created in 1762 the instrument that now stands in Sant Andreu in Santanyi. According to Schmeding, Lidon’s organ works and their indications for performance are intended precisely for the type of organ that Bosch first realised in Santanyi and brought to completion in the royal organ in Madrid.
Lidon wrote two collections directly for use in the Mass. The Seis Piezas o Sonatas sueltas are conceived as versets in the eighth psalm tone, although the link with the psalmody shows through only loosely. For the 4 Piezas para la Misa he partly gives clear instructions for their liturgical use, as an offertory or for the elevation; they could equally serve as prelude, postlude or epistle sonata between the readings, for which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had already written his church sonatas for Salzburg Cathedral.
The other works, for organ or alternatively for clave, show Lidon’s roots in the Spanish style as well as his contact with Joseph Haydn’s Viennese style through his work as director of music. The Sonata de 1er tono, for organ with trumpet, follows Scarlatti and above all Soler in its two-part form and motifs. The Sonata in F major, intended for the Trompeta Real, goes further, combining fanfare motifs with Classical turns of phrase and motivic development. The Sonata de 6° tono in F major is on a particularly large scale. In the Preludio blocks of chords twice alternate with a filigree, virtuoso bicinium, the Andante gustoso uses the division of the Spanish organ into bass and treble for echo effects, and the Allegro con spirito counters with the full organ, the lleno. The Capricho de organo and the Varios juegos por diferentes tonos de imitacion, en tema de sonata, para varios registros bring Classical miniature forms in Spanish sonorities.
Jordi Bosch (1739–1801) was the son of the organ builder Mateu Bosch, who around 1746 built the organs of the monastery of Sant Jeroni in Palma and of Sencelles. Orphaned at twelve, he trained with his uncle Pere Josep and later with Leonardo Fernandez Davila in Granada. Of his large late works only the organ in the Royal Palace in Madrid survives. Gerhard Grenzing restored the Santanyi organ in three stages: the surviving material in 1982, the monumental mixture in 1986 and the large wooden pedal pipes in 2002. The work was also supported by donations; Irmgard Schörghuber made possible the reconstruction of the pedal pipes as well as the cleaning and tuning that Daniel Grenzing carried out in 2011 and without which, according to Gerhard Grenzing, this edition would not have been possible.