ORGANS OF PARIS 2.0 © 2021 Vincent Hildebrandt ALL ORGANS
Organiste titulaire
Jacques Amade, Eric Ampeau, Aude
Heuretematte
Concerts
Seldom
Service with organ
Sunday 11:00 AM, Thursday 7:00 PM (Vespers)
Videos
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Built in 1294 at Rue des Jardins, the Church of the
Billettes was originally a chapel intended to honor
a miracle that aroused great popular fervor.
Later, a convent in Carme settled there.
The present church and the façade to the right of
the portal were built in 1754-1758 after the
project of Jacques Hardouin-Mansart of Sagonne.
At the Revolution, the church and convent were
disused and sold to private individuals. In 1808,
Emperor Napoleon authorized the City of Paris to
acquire all the buildings and assign them to the
Consistory of the Lutheran Church. It was in 1808
that the Lutheran church moved to its premises.
The interior layout of the church dates mainly
from the Empire and the reign of Louis-Philippe,
except for the altar and lectern of contemporary
creation by Philippe Kaeppelin. Currently, the
parish is part of the tradition of orthodoxy where
organ music and liturgy hold a great place.
In 1842, the church acquired one of the first
instruments of the young Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, at the
same time as the Lutheran Church of Redemption,
which was then its annex. The organ was built for the
Universal Exhibition in Paris and was originally
intended to serve as a choir organ in St Roch's
Church. Several times transformed by Cavaillé-Coll
(1863), Mutin (1912) and Gutschenrietter (1945), the
instrument consisted of 18 stops on 2 keyboards and
pedals, with mechanical transmissions.
In 1978, the parish decided to acquire a new organ,
commissioned from the Muhleisen House in
Strasbourg-Cronenbourg. The old organ was
dismantled and reassembled in 1988 in the chapel le
de Jésus Enfant of the parish of Ste Clotilde (Paris
VIIe). In 1982 and 1983, the new organ was built and
mounted on the tribune in the back of the nave. It
was the first new organ financed by the city of Paris in
the 20th century. It is an instrument in the German
Baroque style, with 29 stops on three keyboards and
pedals, with mechanical transmissions. The buffet
was designed by Rémy Mahler.
In 2017, the instrument was overhauled by
Muhleisen.
In 1987, the church acquired a small choir organ built by
Muhleisen. This Positive of 4 stops with pedal ‘en tirasse’
would have been sold to a temple in Marseille in the
early 2000s.