The score to John Woolrich’s Lending Wings

Lending Wings for 16 players was first performed by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group under Oliver Knussen in 1989. Woolrich describes this energetic 14-minute work as “a large mechanism, which is slowly cranked into life with a series of grinding gear changes, until at the end…the thing chases off downhill, clanking and wheezing, in a hectic acceleration to final collapse.” Lending Wings features an especially extravagant use of percussion, with two players arrayed on opposite sides of the concert platform using 32 instruments between them.