Well, did you enjoy our Praise Him with Trumpets? Our thanks to David and his brass quartet for their vigorous leadership of our singing on Sunday night! I've received some very favourable comments, so thank you to everyone who took part. The choir's "God's gonna set this world on fire" went down well, too. (So we'll be performing it again very soon!)

This Sunday morning, the choir will be singing something very different - Babylon's Fall, by John Beaumont. Who was Beaumont? Well, he seems to have been an Englishman who wrote a book of hymns in 1801, called the "New harmonic magazine or compendious repository of sacred music in full score". (Makes our hymn-book titles sound punchy by comparison, doesn't it?) Beaumont's book includes our anthem. The words of Babylon's Fall are attributed to Isaac Watts and are derived from the Book of Revelations. And I found the music copied out in some nineteenth century manuscripts from Dundee. Here's the interesting part. John Beaumont expressly wrote that "if any person chuses to alter my composition, let them remember it is not with my consent". The Dundee owner of the manuscripts was clearly unaware of the prohibition, and seems to have altered things merrily and with gay abandon! Including (choir, please note!) transposing it down a tone. Who said copyright was a new problem?

Now, I just need to type the final version of the Celtic Praise service, then I can start thinking about Christmas ...