Ashokan Farewell
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"Ashokan Farewell" is a piece of music composed by Jay Ungar in 1982. It was later used as the title theme of the television miniseries The Civil War, which aired on PBS in 1990.
The piece is a waltz in D Major, written in the style of a Scottish lament (e.g., Niel Gow's lament for his second wife.) The most famous arrangement of the piece begins with a solo violin, later accompanied by guitar.
Before its use as the television series theme, "Ashokan Farewell" was recorded on "Waltz of the Wind," the second album by the band Fiddle Fever. The musicians included Ungar and his wife, Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name. It has served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps that Ungar and Mason run at the lakefront Ashokan Field Campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz.
Ashokan was the name of a Catskill Region village that is now mostly covered by the Ashokan Reservoir.
In 1984, filmmaker Ken Burns heard "Ashokan Farewell" and was moved by it. He used it in two of his films: The Civil War, which features the original recording by Fiddle Fever in the beginning of the film, and his 1985 documentary Huey Long.
The Civil War drew the most national attention to the song. The song is played 25 times throughout the eleven-hour series[1], including during the emotional reading of Sullivan Ballou's letter to his wife in the first episode; it underlies almost an hour of film.
Viewers of the The Civil War frequently -- and erroneously -- believe the melody is a traditional tune that was played at the time of the Civil War. In fact, it is the only modern composition on the Burns documentary's soundtrack; all other music is authentic 19th century music.
