Though little documentation of his life survives, no historian doubts that Antony Holborne was well-educated. He may have been a student at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and admitted into London's Inner Temple a few years later. Certainly he knew a smattering of several languages (Latin, English, Italian, and even Spanish), and just as certainly he moved in high literary circles. Holborne apparently was familiar with Lady Mary Sidney, a poetess in her own right and a patron of Edmund Spenser. Numerous times throughout his musical career, Holborne alluded to works of Spenser's in his own compositions, often through the emblematic subtitles attached to his dance tunes. The most celebrated example is the pair of allusive pieces that conclude Holborne's immense printed anthology of consort music, the Pavans, Galliards and Almains of 1599. The final two dances bear the titles As it fell on holie Eve and Heigh Ho Holiday; both phrases also appear paired together in Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar (1579). In it, two shepherds named Perigot and Willye engage in a singing contest; one begins by singing "As it fell on a holie Eve" and the other responds with "Heigh-ho, Holiday!"

Holborne's music may very well have existed in a prior version, as a galliard for lute alone; in this case, he appropriated it as a rollicking end to his consort-music collection. The music lends itself so well to rustic, frivolous hilarity that many modern performers have considered it a lively coranto instead of a galliard. The melody contains, from the beginning, plenty of hops and skips, as well as the rhythmic alternations common to both dances. It also tends to shimmer between shades of major and minor harmonies. Two repeated strains of regular length suffice both for galliard and coranto dancers (not to mention Spenser's comic pastoral characters). For its literary associations, for its place of prominence at the conclusion of Holborne's main printed collection, and for its delightfully spry musical character, Heigh Ho Holiday has remained a perennial favorite.

© Timothy Dickey, Rovi