MUSIC

Memories of another, older war -- a war no one knows except from history -- were evoked for millions of Americans last summer by the ravishingly melancholy fiddle and guitar strains that accompanied the PBS series The Civil War. The haunting tune, called Ashokan Farewell, had been composed eight years earlier, one morning at the end of summer, by a lapsed '60s rocker turned upcountry fiddler named Jay Ungar. By wedding its beauty and timelessness to hundreds of graphic still photos, PBS created an affecting combination.

Since then, the song has assumed its own separate identity. With Ashokan Farewell as the centerpiece, more than 200,000 copies of the series sound track have been sold, and the album (on Elektra Nonesuch) is making its way into the higher reaches of the hit charts. The single, released Nov. 30, is receiving regular play on country stations.

Ungar, 44 and Bronx born, was a founding member of a jolly, one-hit '60s rock band, Cat Mother and the All-Night Newsboys. He has been running a fiddle-and-dance workshop every August for 12 years at the State University of New York, New Paltz, Ashokan Field Campus in the Catskill Mountains. It was shortly after the conclusion of the 1982 session that Ungar, feeling particularly sad, reached for his fiddle and cassette recorder and set down Ashokan Farewell. Inspired musically by 19th century Scottish laments, Ungar's song was "so special that I didn't play it for anyone who wasn't a close friend. I had strong feelings about how it might affect people. I was in tears when I composed it."

+ The tune wound up on an album by Ungar's group, Fiddle Fever (which also includes his fiance Molly Mason on guitar), and it was this version that caught the attention of Civil War director Ken Burns. Although Ungar was paid only $4,500 for the use of the song, and should see roughly an additional $25,000 from writer's royalties, there is a fair chance that his composition may become something of a classic. History always seems to require a lot of farewells.