(Paper for 30th October 2025 meeting of Worship Team)
Introduction and summary
The Tryst Church is generally considering options to modernise the premises with a view to enabling effective mission in the Larbert area. It seems likely that there will be a requirement for Organ accompaniment to enable traditional hymn singing for some years to come. This document provides an introduction to the issues that need to be considered.
Physical layout
The Tryst Church organ is made up of three main components:
- The console (i.e. keyboards and pedalboard). This is connected to the pipes digitally via a small computerised unit inside the console. In principle the current console (or a replacement console) can be located anywhere in the building.
- The pipes, which are behind the pulpit, and cannot be easily moved.
- The electronic blower, which is located underneath the pipes in the ‘dungeon’ between the pulpit and the McInnes Room.
General Condition
The present Organ seems to be in a poor state of repair. Many individual notes do not sound and this is particularly noticeable in the Swell. Tuning is generally poor (in spite of a recent visit from the tuners: Lightbown) and this is particularly noticeable in the upper registers. There is limited volume available from the Swell.
Characteristics
The Abbot and Smith is of medium size but appears to have limited contrast available. Diapasons and flute stops dominate, and there are no “strong” reed stops such as trumpet or cornopean. The Organ was converted to indirect electric action in 2015 which would allow the console to be re-positioned without re-routing numerous pneumatic tubes.
Reports
We have high level reports from Lightbown and Matthew Hynes[1] . Lightbown suggests re-conditioning the swell and great wind reservoirs would cost approx. £12k. This work is intended to address the multiple faults which are described above.
Note it would be very unlikely to be cost effective or practical to relocate either of the organs in Stenhouse & Carron or Larbert West into Tryst Church.
Finding a way Forwards
There are broadly speaking two ways forward which are to refurbish the existing instrument or to replace the existing instrument with an electronic Organ.
Other options exist such as changing the mechanism or action of the existing instrument from indirect electric to direct electric which would supersede the plan to re-condition the wind reservoirs. This would be expensive as a bespoke solution would have to be designed and implemented.
Hybrid organ conversion also might be considered but this is likely to be as expensive as purchasing a new electronic organ while incurring the full cost of re-building the existing instrument.
These “other options” are mentioned here for information purposes but are probably more suited to a situation where there is a strong imperative to retain an historic instrument.
Refurbishment of the existing instrument
Pipe organs very often suffer a long and lingering demise due to the high cost of repair/reconditioning. Quite often a piecemeal repair approach can stave off (for a while) the need to fully rebuild the instrument. This approach however, is not always in the best interest of the congregation. It is the suspicion of the organists that considerable re-conditioning would be required to return the present instrument to an “acceptable” condition. A full rebuild might cost between £60k and £100k. This approach would return the instrument to its original condition but would not address the “lack of contrast” and quality of the existing stops mentioned above.
Replacement of the existing instrument
A replacement organ would likely be an electronic instrument. This would be able to produce a much wider variety of good quality sound and purchase price (including associated dedicated sound system) would probably be slightly cheaper, but still in the ‘mid tens of thousands’. (A high quality dedicated sound system which would be needed to be able to project the sound around the building. There are, sadly, all-to-common examples of new electronic organs being installed without speakers to produce the very low bass notes that organ music requires.)
Current trends and thinking
The mission plan, which has led to the formation of Larbert Tryst, places emphasis on the church being a place which is welcoming and relevant to the lives of the congregation and the wider community which we serve. This is the reason that the Tryst Church is actively considering modernisation options and this principle must surely extend to modernising our music. It seems likely that we shall continue to use the traditional hymns for some years to come but also that there will be increasingly a move towards modern forms of music which would not necessarily involve a church organ.
Today the default option would be an electronic organ and increasingly pipe organs are being replaced by electronic instruments (quite often the front row of organ pipes are left in place).
There are questions regarding the availability of pipe organ builders and tuners. A google search of “pipe organ builders in Scotland” produces a list of two companies. Indeed the Incorporated Society of Organ Builders lists for the UK only 47 companies. This situation seems likely to get worse as the number of working pipe organs diminish and as the competition decreases the cost of repairs and tuning is likely to increase.
Planning for Change
Wider discussion of a way forwards would seem to be necessary or perhaps urgent. This discussion should ideally get underway in order to inform the thinking about repairs of the current instrument and, very importantly, to ensure an integrated approach to the overall refurbishment project This should involve the musicians (employees and volunteers), choir, refurbishment team, the Session and the Congregation. That work would then inform a properly detailed investigation, including costs, of the most likely options.
At this initial stage the questions are therefore:
- Do we envisage our musical worship over the next 10 to 15 years (i.e. up to 2040) using a church organ?
- Do we envisage our musical worship over the subsequent 15 year period (i.e. up to 2055) also using a church organ?
(At this stage we don’t have to consider whether a such ‘church organ’ would be a traditional acoustic instrument or a digital instrument – that question is for the next stage if the answer is ‘Yes’ to questions (1) and/or (2).)
Reports by Matthew Hynes and John Lightbown & Sons
It’s not necessary to read these technical reports for the purposes of considering the worship-focussed questions posed in this paper. But in case anyone does want to read them, they can be accessed online.
All three reports are in a single document, structured as follows:
- A – High level report on Larbert organs – Matthew Hynes – 2nd April 2025
- B1 – High level assessment of work required on the swell bellows of the Tryst Church pipe organ – John Lightbown & Sons – 10th November 2024
- B2 – High level assessment of work required on the wind-chest leather membranes of the Tryst Church pipe organ – John Lightbown & Sons – 10th November 2024
[1] These reports are available online (see the end of this paper for the links). The Lightbown report was requested to provide a rough ‘order of magnitude’ cost estimate to inform our options appraisal; it does not represent a formal quotation. The main aim of the Hynes report was to provide a high level overview of the three pipe organs in the legacy churches.