'It is the story of the “Ancient Mariner” and of the dreadful doom which befell him and his shipmates after he had shot the albatross. It is a mystery of of the ice-bound seas in which the spirit of the slain bird, in fulfilment of an ancient prophecy, exacts a terrible revenge upon the rash mortal who dares to defy the powers of supernatural darkness. The lines,
"About, about, in reel and rout,
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green and blue and white.”
strike the theme of atmospheric presentation in which the spoken word, song, and orchestra combine to form one artistic whole in which the haunting beauty of S. T. Coleridge’s famous verses is portrayed in all its stark simplicity. The story opens with a wedding feast, the happiness of which is suddenly disturbed by the unbidden intrusion of "The Ancient Mariner," who brings with him an aura of brooding horror. Silent and dismayed, the wedding guests are forced to listen to his tale of horror. The climax of musical and dramatic intensity is reached when, in their imagination, the wedding guests actually see before their eyes the haunted ship and its crew of living corpses. The music of J. F. Barnett forms a most fitting background for this gripping phantasma.'
Source: [Radio guide], Wireless Weekly, 19 January 1934, p.47.
Written by Edmund Barclay after the poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the music 'Ancient Mariner' (also influenced by Coleridge) by J.F. Barnett.
Broadcast on 2FC from 9:25pm on Monday 22 January 1934.
Producer: Humphrey Bishop.
