Turkey in the Straw

Based on one of America’s oldest square dances, Turkey in the Straw (1958) became a standard in the New Zealand repertoire and also further afield, having received over 800 performances. The work combines liveliness of character with deft craftsmanship – after a brief introduction with the turkey scratching in the straw, a set of free variants on the theme follows. A tail-end scrap of the melody becomes the basis of a fugue, which soon reactivates the variation mode leading to a brief finale.