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If you’re in the mood for some high drama and virtuosic fireworks—Baroque style—mark your calendar for this Saturday afternoon. On April 12 at 2 p.m., the ensemble Fidem in Fìdibus returns to the Winnipeg Baroque Festival with La Folia, a concert bursting with energy, intimacy, and the gorgeously unpredictable nature of 17th-century music.
Held at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church, the program features music by Baroque luminaries such as Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Antonio Vivaldi and Andrea Falconieri, inspired by the hypnotic rhythms of the “La Folia” theme. Expect rich textures and an ensemble committed to performing on period instruments—yes, even gut strings and all.
Faith in fiddles
The ensemble name roughly translates from Latin to “faith in fiddles”—a fitting title for this string-forward group composed of some of Winnipeg’s finest early music performers. The core lineup includes Momoko Matsumura and Tatiana Friesen (violins), Jennifer Thiessen (viola and viola da gamba), Nathaniel Froese (cello), Theresa Thordarson (harpsichord), and John Himes on guitar and lute.
They made their festival debut last year, and the response was so warm, they knew they had to come back. “The highlight for me was to see audience members after the show,” said Matsumura. “They were so happy and so enthusiastic about what we just shared with them. That just made me think, ‘OK, we have to do this again.’”
Gut instincts
So what sets Baroque instruments apart from their modern-day counterparts? For starters, there’s the strings. “For Baroque period instruments, they used to use sheep gut strings,” explained Matsumura. “Gut string has a more mild timbre… [modern synthetic strings] are a little more metallic, and the projection is different.”
Baroque bows are also shaped differently—more like a bow-and-arrow than the concave design seen today—creating a different kind of articulation and sound.
And then there’s the tuning. While today’s standard pitch is A=440Hz, Baroque musicians often tune down to A=415Hz. “That’s actually a half step below standard tuning,” said Matsumura. “It helps create a warmer sound.” But in the Baroque period, there was no universal tuning—pitch often varied depending on the region, ensemble, or even the nearest organ.
From New York to Winnipeg
John Himes, who plays both Baroque guitar and lute with the ensemble, moved to Winnipeg from New York five years ago. He credits his deepening interest in early music to the collegium ensemble at the University of Manitoba and a summer at the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute in 2023.
“Last year, I played continuo on a modern nylon-string classical guitar, which is not ideal—but we made it work,” he said. “This year, I’ve sourced some real period instruments… and it really does make a huge difference contributing toward the sound.”
The lute Himes will be playing has 15 strings arranged in eight courses. “There are seven courses that are double, and the highest string, the chanterelle, is a single string,” he explained. And while Himes supplies the harmonic foundation, he says the joy is in the details: “My part is as modular as I make it… I can have as much fun as I want with it.”
Mystery and madness
Saturday’s program includes one of Biber’s famed Rosary Sonatas—specifically, the second sonata known as The Visitation—which employs a wild technique called scordatura, or alternate tunings. “It literally translates to ‘mistuned’ in Italian,” said Matsumura. “It achieves specific sonic effects or facilitates certain musical passages.”
She plays The Visitation in an A-E-A-E tuning, as opposed to the standard G-D-A-E. “You create a different resonance,” she said. “The violin sounds totally different.”
It also scrambles the violinist’s muscle memory. “So many wrong notes coming out,” she laughed. “I was fascinated… at the same time, I was scared, because it’s just so wild out there.”
Folia fever
The concert’s title track, La Folia, is one of the most enduring themes in Western music. Originating from the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century, it’s built on a repeating bass line—a kind of musical skeleton that composers from Corelli to Vivaldi have adorned with increasingly flashy “divisions,” or variations.
“I was listening to like a few of those and going, how have they approached this?” said Friesen. “In a way, they kind of all sound the same because it’s the same material—but you can hear the personality of the composer coming through.”
Friesen also recalled being assigned La Folia at Tafelmusik as a compositional challenge: “We were given the folia and told, ‘Write divisions on this.’ It was an exercise in figuring out how to ornament and come up with stuff... so I think probably there were composers who were just doing this because their teachers told them to do it.”
Falconieri’s flair
The ensemble will also showcase the music of Andrea Falconieri, a lutenist and composer known for dance music and what might politely be called... distracting charm.
“He was working in a convent, but all the nuns were very distracted by his music,” said Matsumura with a smile. “They couldn’t focus on their practicing anymore because his music was very sensual.”
Falconieri’s Folia will be performed as a duet between Friesen and Matsumura, with plenty of playful back-and-forth. “There’s all this throwing things back and forth and sort of just increasingly complicating things in a way that’s really fun,” said Friesen. “You never know what’s going to happen next.”
With its lively instrumentation, deep historical roots, and infectious sense of joy, La Folia offers a fresh and vibrant perspective on Baroque music. Whether you're a longtime early music lover or simply curious to hear something a little off the beaten path, Fidem in Fìdibus promises an afternoon of spirited storytelling through sound. Catch them at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church this Saturday at 2 p.m.—it’s sure to be a wild and wonderful ride through the rich world of Baroque expression.
