Millions of people met this waltz in a documentary about the Civil War. Many of them still believe a soldier wrote it. They are off by more than a century. Jay Ungar wrote Ashokan Farewell in 1982 at a fiddle camp in the Catskills, and the true story is better than the myth.
Where it came from
Jay Ungar and Molly Mason ran the Ashokan Fiddle and Dance Camps at the Ashokan Field Campus, a SUNY New Paltz property in the Catskills of New York. One season ended and everyone went home. Ungar sat down with his fiddle and felt the loss. He writes on his own site that he composed the tune in 1982, shortly after the camps had come to an end for the season.
He was reaching for something Scottish. He told PBS he went looking for a Scottish lament, and his own melody arrived instead. It came fast. He told the Watershed Post that he had most of it inside the first twenty to forty minutes. He also said this about the writing: “In writing it, I was in tears, but I didn’t know why, or what was happening.”
Ungar kept the tune private at first. It grew into the last dance of the camp season. Mason co-ran the camps and played bass in Ungar’s band, Fiddle Fever, which recorded it for the 1984 album Waltz of the Wind on Flying Fish.
Ken Burns heard it. He used it in Huey Long in 1985, then made it the theme of The Civil War. That series premiered on PBS in September 1990, ran nine episodes, and drew forty million viewers. The Fiddle Fever recording opens the film. The tune returns under the reading of Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife, which is the moment most viewers remember. It appears twenty-five times across the series.
Awards followed. The soundtrack won the 1991 Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album. Ashokan Farewell was nominated for an Emmy, according to Ungar and Mason’s site.
Now the correction, because this is the one thing almost everybody gets wrong. Ashokan Farewell is not a Civil War tune. It is the only modern composition on that soundtrack. Every other piece in the film is real nineteenth century music. Molly Mason told PBS that people are surprised Jay wrote the tune, because they assume it must have come from the nineteenth century. The tune sounds old because Ungar was chasing the sound of a Scottish lament, not because it is old.
The story has a last chapter. In 2006 SUNY New Paltz planned to sell the Ashokan Field Campus. Ungar and Mason founded the Ashokan Foundation and kept the 385 acre preserve intact. The tune named for the place helped save the place.
How it works
Ashokan Farewell is a waltz. The time signature is 3/4 and the key is D major. The Traditional Tune Archive lists the form as AA’B. The A strain plays twice with a changed ending, then the B strain answers it.
The harmony is plain, and that is the point. The A part sits on the 1, steps up to the 4, touches the 2 minor, and drops to the 6 minor before the 5 walks it home. The B part opens the same way, then does the one surprising thing in the tune. It leans on the flat 7. In D that chord is C major, and it is the main reason the melody sounds older than it is. Borrowed flat 7 chords are common in Scottish and Irish airs, so listeners connect that color with old music.
A common jam setting uses six chords: the 1, 2 minor, 4, 5, 6 minor, and flat 7. Backup players used to the bluegrass chop need a different approach here. A waltz wants a bass note and two soft brushes per bar, not a backbeat. That is a separate skill from driving a breakdown like Blackberry Blossom.
Speed is not the challenge. Tone is. The melody stays low in first position on the fiddle and leaves a player exposed. Long bows, an even sound, and restrained vibrato carry it. The tune also has a home in competition. Fiddle contests ask for three tunes per round, and one of the three must be a waltz, which is why this one turns up at contests year after year.
One note on rights. Jay Ungar wrote this tune in 1982 and he is living, so it stays under copyright for decades. This page gives history, form, and chord numbers. It prints no lyrics, notation, or tab. For tunes with no such limit, see the songbook.
Buying the printed music is the honest path, and it pays the man who wrote it. Ungar publishes through his own company, Swinging Door Music, which holds the copyright on the tune. His official site carries a sheet music section in its shop, and the FAQ page lists the contacts for mechanical and film licenses. Start at the source.
Recordings worth hearing
Start with Fiddle Fever on Waltz of the Wind (Flying Fish FF 303, 1984). That is the original recording, made years before anyone outside the camp knew the tune. Ungar plays fiddle alongside Matt Glaser and Evan Stover, with Russ Barenberg on guitar and Molly Mason on bass. Ken Burns used this exact track to open his film.
Next, hear it in context on The Civil War soundtrack (Elektra Nonesuch, November 30, 1990). Ashokan Farewell opens and closes the thirty track album. Playing it beside the period tunes on the same record settles the question of its age faster than any argument.
Mark O’Connor cut a version for his album Heroes as a duet with the classical violinist Pinchas Zukerman. It shows how much room the melody gives an interpreter.
For the composer’s own late reading, find The Quiet Room by Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, released in January 2018. The tune closes the record. That album grew out of Mason’s recovery from brain surgery, and Ungar has said its tunes were chosen for peace, calm, love, and hope.
Sources
Facts on this page come from Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s own About page and FAQ and licensing page, the PBS About the Music page for The Civil War, the Watershed Post article on how Jay Ungar wrote Ashokan Farewell, and the Ashokan Center’s history of The Quiet Room.
Recording and form details come from the Discogs listing for Waltz of the Wind, the Nonesuch Records page for The Civil War soundtrack, the Traditional Tune Archive annotation, the Bandcamp page for The Quiet Room, and the Wikipedia entries for Ashokan Farewell and Heroes.