The Love Of My Life: A Song History
"The Love of My Life" is a tune by the fiddler Jay Ungar, who is named as its sole composer, with the piece set in DAD tuning, in the listing for a mountain dulcimer edition of his and Molly Mason's music on the couple's online store.[1] It is printed on page 37 of the duo's tunebook Catskill Mountain Waltzes and Airs, introduced by the pair as a gathering of waltzes and airs written over decades, some already performed, recorded or used in documentary scores and others never before shared beyond their notebooks.[2]
Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Kauterskill Clove (from Sketchbook of Landscape and Animal Subjects), graphite, ink washes and gouache on off-white wove paper, ca. 1860–64. Kauterskill Clove in the Catskill Mountains, the region named in the title of the tunebook Catskill Mountain Waltzes and Airs, where this waltz is printed; the drawing has no connection to the tune.
A track titled "Love of My Life" appears on Ungar and Mason's CD The Quiet Room, a collection that, by the store's account, grew out of Mason's surgery for a brain tumor and her gradual recovery, when Ungar and her brother James played fiddles in her hospital room, and that is offered as music for healing.[3] Green Man Review dated the album to 2018 on the Fiddle & Dance label and counted "Love of My Life" among its three new compositions, calling it "heartwarming"; neither source says more about the piece, or states outright that this track and the tunebook's "The Love of My Life" are the same music.[4] Ungar, who grew up in the Bronx and married Mason in 1991, is best known as the composer of "Ashokan Farewell," the main theme of Ken Burns's PBS series The Civil War.[5]
Melanie Johnston gives the tune in DAD tuning, under Ungar's name, in 22 Selections From Jay Ungar & Molly Mason's Book "Catskill Mountain Waltzes And Airs", an authorized, licensed tablature edition she publishes herself; a computer-generated MP3 in a piano voice accompanies every one of its 22 pieces as a listening guide.[6]
Sources
- Jay Ungar & Molly Mason store: "Catskill Mountain Waltzes & Airs for Mountain Dulcimer".
- Jay Ungar & Molly Mason store: "Catskill Mountain Waltzes and Airs".
- Jay Ungar & Molly Mason store: "The Quiet Room CD".
- Green Man Review: "Jay Ungar and Molly Mason's The Quiet Room".
- Jay Ungar & Molly Mason: "About".
- Melanie Johnston: "22 Selections From Jay Ungar & Molly Mason's Book 'Catskill Mountain Waltzes And Airs'".
- Image: Thomas Hewes Hinckley, Kauterskill Clove (from Sketchbook of Landscape and Animal Subjects), graphite, ink washes and gouache on off-white wove paper, ca. 1860–64. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.