Background
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 and upright bass.
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.
The tune was also used on the TV series The Twilight Zone in 1986, in an episode titled "Shadow Play", about a death-row inmate who claimed that reality was but a figment of his never-ending nightmare.
Ashokan was the name of a Catskill Region village that is now mostly covered by the Ashokan Reservoir.
Read more about this topic: Ashokan Farewell
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