Concerts at the Gesu church

In May and June 2008 Toulouse les Orgues organised new events around the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Gesu.
Each Thursday, at 12.45 am, there were 30 minutes concerts followed by a friendly aperitive.

In partnership with the  Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse & the Centre d’Études Supérieures de Musique et de Danse de Toulouse.

Price: 8 euros

Église du Gesu - 22 bis rue des Fleurs - 31000 Toulouse
(between the Place du Salin & the Ozenne street)
Underground : Carmes or Palais de Justice



Information about the Gesu church :
Mélanie Daoulas, chargée d'action culturelle
m.daoulas@toulouse-les-orgues.org
Tél. 05 61 33 76 80

When the Jesuits created a Province with a base in Toulouse in 1852, they wanted to demonstrate their importance. After settling into the Maison de l’Inquisition they started to purchase extensive land in 1853 and commissioned the architect Henry Bach (1815-1899) to build the Gesu church, which meant demolishing the old Sénéchaussée and a stretch of the city wall. In his designs, Henry Bach favoured the art of the 13th Century, but interpreted it so freely that the building stands stylistically somewhere between Northern Gothic and Southern sunlight. The result seems to be a compromise between the southern style of the single nave with chapels between the buttresses and a more northern overall shape.

The interior is extremely attractive with tall, slim columns, flowering into extraordinary leaf-motif capitals. The excellent painted decorations are the work of the architect’s Jesuit brother Auguste Bach (1819-1890) and are in the spirit of the stained glass created by the Toulouse craftsman Louis-Victor Gesta (1828-1894) from sketches by the painter Bernard Bénézet (1835-1897) also from Toulouse. All these factors give the church an exceptional feeling of cohesion and unity.

The organ of the Gesu church was constructed in 1864 by the famous organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. It was listed as a historic monument in 1977.
After reconstructing the great organ of Saint-Etienne Cathedral in 1852, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll built a new instrument in the Church of Gesu in 1864. It was inaugurated by Lefébure-Wély. The neo-Gothic case, with its two pipefaces and its three angled pipetowers, houses an organ with twenty-four stops over two manuals and a pedalboard. Its composition is characteristic of Cavaillé-Coll’s second period. This little-known instrument deserves wider fame as one of the great organ builder’s masterpieces.

In March 1880 the authorities decreed that the church should be closed but it nevertheless remained the property of the Jesuits. It was reopened to the public in 1920, and the Saint Stanislas School was established in the old noviciate.
The City of Toulouse acquired the church in 2000 and carried out some necessary conservation work before granting the keys to the Toulouse les Orgues association with the mission of bringing the site to life.
The Association programmed a new season of music in December 2005 with participation from the Antiphona Ensemble, the Ensemble Baroque de Toulouse and the Sacqueboutiers.