Holborne, Muy Linda

Graduate students in music develop their own peculiar sense of humor. At least we did back in my KU days. We were thoroughly immersed in the music world. (So much so, to my chagrin, that I knew nothing of the extraordinary humanities program being run just up the hill by John Senior.) We especially excelled in creative names for our pick-up softball teams (e.g. the Hans Sachs) and tongue-in-cheek titles for prospective research papers. I always remember Donovan Bowman’s “The Private Life of Anonymous IV.”

I tell you all this because today’s video is a work by Anthony Holborne, and there is very little that I can say about him. His biography is full of holes. So I’m filling space with irrelevant chatter in lieu of telling you anything useful.

What we do know is that Holborne was very highly regarded in his day (c. 1545-1602). He left us about 150 works, mostly instrumental dances. He kept good company with John Dowland and Thomas Morley. Dowland dedicated one of his most famous songs, “I saw my lady weepe,” to Holborne.

But of course we make the case elsewhere that composer biographies have limited use anyway. How would we approach the centuries of anonymous musical works otherwise?

As compensation for the lack of serious content in this post, I offer a bonus. A twofer: the first by L’Achéron on period instruments and the second by the Canadian Brass played out on the beach somewhere. The Canadian Brass version has a very cool 360-degree feature. I need to find a way to film Professor Carol this way.