Turkey in the Straw was composed as an encore piece for the inaugural subscription concert of the John Ritchie String Orchestra. The performance took place on 7 March 1959 at the Durham Street Art Gallery, Christchurch, conducted by John Ritchie. The piece became a standard not only of the local repertoire but also further afield, particularly in Canada; it has received over 800 performances. The Alex Lindsay String Orchestra under Alex Lindsay recorded it in 1960 (Kiwi Pacific Records SL-2). Based on one of America's oldest square dances, Turkey in the Straw combines liveliness of character with deft craftsmanship. An arrangement for full orchestra dates from July 1959.
The piece is simply a set of free variants on the theme, preceded by a brief introduction with the turkey scratching in the straw. Eventually a tail-end scrap of the melody becomes the basis of a fugue, which soon, by way of a short quotation from Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings, reactivates the variation mode leading to a brief finale. The melody used in this piece was originally published in 1834 under the title Zip Coon and comes from a number of possible sources, including the English Old Mother Oxford, the Irish Kinnegad Slashers and even the Scottish Lady Shaftsbury's Reel. As Turkey in the Straw it took on a new life of its own and has come to be considered as an American traditional folk tune.
