Ashokan Farewell and "Inconceivable!"

Somehow yesterday I stumbled across the Ken Burns Civil War documentary theme song, Ashokan Farewell, and the reading of the Sullivan Ballou letter. If you’ve never heard the letter from a RI soldier to his wife upon the eve of the Battle of Bull Run, read aloud (the only way to experience it), you can hear it here. And get out your hankies. Can you believe The Civil War came out 17 years ago?

So then I was thinking, ‘wouldn’t it be nice to have a CD of violin music.’ I started a list of not-necessarily-classical violin tunes with the intention of downloading to my iTunes and making a CD. I thought of tunes like the Ashokan Farewell, Vangelis' Building the Barn from Witness, and Knopfler’s A Love Idea from The Princess Bride (which turned 15 this week, can you believe it?) but surprisingly, I had a very hard time finding what I wanted online. My search terms were close but no cigar.

I’m not opposed to classical, Vivaldi and Mozart are great and I love their violin pieces. But searching for popular music yielded bluegrass fiddle or gypsy-Hungarian songs. Even Mark O’Connor didn’t yield what I was looking for, but I’m sure if I stuck with a search of his voluminous tracks I would find pieces that are similar to Ashokan Farewell.

One CD I did find was titled, “The Most Relaxing Violin Music in the Universe.” I like things that are named what they are, don’t you? I stopped the search because it was taking too much time away from other things I wanted to do. Like be productive. I guess I'll settle for stumbling across the tunes I am thinking of but don’t know yet and consider it a musical treasure hunt.

So speaking of The Princess Bride, my all-time favorite movie, I can’t believe it is 15 years old this week. Who could forget The Cliffs Of Insanity? The Pit of Despair? Inigo Montoya and his pursuit of the Six-Fingered Man? I own the DVD, and I’m bringing it to a friend’s house this weekend, a friend who has never seen it. Now, Princess Bride, or PB to us insiders, is a cult classic. That means that we say the lines out loud, like in Rocky Horror Picture Show. I hope my friend doesn’t get too annoyed when I shout “Inconceivable” and “unemployed…in Greenland!” and my fave, “He’s only mostly dead!” Me and the movie Princess Bride. It’s true love.