"Ashokan Farewell"
Slow Waltz, D, .
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Playing or Personal Notes:
No personal notes.
History
From TFC;
ASHOKAN FAREWELL. American, Air or Waltz (3/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning. AA'B. The tune was chosen by Ken Burns as the theme for 1992's celebrated PBS series "The Civil War." However, rather than a melody from that era, it is a 1983 Grammy winning piece by fiddler Jay Ungar (West Hurley, New York), who composed it at the end of an emotional year at the 1982 music and dance camp run by he and Molly Mason at Ashokan, New York. The tune has since become the traditional ‘last dance’ at the camp each year. “Ashokan Farewell” has become hugely popular, and can even frequently be heard rendered by school string programs. The name Ashokan first appears in Dutch records from the 17th century and may be a corruption of an Indian word. The town of Ashokan itself was largely inundated by the vast Ashokan Reservoir, one of New York City’s watersheds in the Catskill Mountains. The ‘folk process’ has yielded several titles based on miss-hearings of the word Ashokan, including “The Choking Farewell,” and “I’m Choking, Farewell.” Various sets of words have been attached to the tune, including ones by Grian MacGregor, written in 1991 and sung by Priscilla Herdman, on her Flying Fish Records CD "Forever & Always." Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes, vol. 2), 2005; pg. 74 (appears as “Leah’s Waltz”, the name of a dance by Fried de Metz Herman composed in 1989 to the tune). Matthiesen (The Waltz Book), 1992; pg. 14. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), vol. 2, 1995; pg. 238. Flying Fish, "The Best of Fiddle Fever."
From Wikipedia;
"Ashokan Farewell" /əˈʃoʊ.kænˌ/ is a piece of music composed by American folk musician Jay Ungar in 1982. For many years it served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps run by Ungar and his wife Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name, at the Ashokan Field Campus of SUNY New Paltz (now the Ashokan Center) in Upstate New York. It also served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps that Ungar and Mason run in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Ashokan was the name of a former village in the Catskill region that is now mostly covered by the Ashokan Reservoir.
Jay Ungar has a website at; http://jayandmolly.com/