For more than 30 years, English early-music ensemble Fretwork has dedicated itself to the repertoire of a single stringed instrument. The viol—also known as the viola da gamba—reached the height of its popularity in the late Renaissance but faded rapidly in the late 17th century with the rise of the more versatile violin and its family. When Fretwork formed in 1985, the founders were determined not only to revive the ancient viol but to alter the way the instrument had come to be viewed by musicians. But the prospect before them was daunting.

“It seemed like an exciting, but risky venture,” says Richard Boothby, cofounder of Fretwork, reached at his home in Gloucestershire, England. “Not risky in an artistic sense, but it seemed fairly unlikely to succeed because the public perception of viol consorts and consort music at that time was very amateur. This was the preserve of amateurs and the repertoire was not music to play in front of the public, but music to be enjoyed by the players. In forming Fretwork it was that perception we were trying to change. I’m sure it came about because we were a group of like-minded viol players who happened to be on the scene at the same time.”

Fretwork not only met the challenge but has come to be widely regarded today as the world’s leading viol ensemble, and is expanding the repertoire of the instrument. Although most of the works the company performs are drawn from the roughly 150-year period between John Taverner and Henry Purcell, Fretwork likes to include recent compositions in its programs.

“We started with just one contemporary piece, then a few more, and eventually, contemporary music became a bigger and bigger part of what we do,” Boothby says. “Nowadays it is unusual for us to do a program without some contemporary music in it. In fact, we sometimes do a whole concert of contemporary music.”

In Nomine, the program that Fretwork presents in Vancouver, is bookended by works by Taverner and Purcell, but also includes modern pieces by composers Gavin Bryars and Nico Muhly. “The contemporary-music angle gives us never-ending possibilities for new repertoire,” says Boothby. “That doesn’t mean we’ve exhausted the standard repertoire, and we’ve really only recently started to explore early-16th-century music in Italy and Germany. But in terms of the public perception of the group, contemporary music locks into a whole new audience that is not only intrigued by the idea of new music for old instruments, but is also interested in what these composers are trying to communicate.”

At the same time, Fretwork is still exploring what the older works for the viol actually sounded like when originally performed. “The fact is we simply don’t know how consort music was played,” says Boothby. “There is almost no information at all, which seems odd, because it is such a big repertoire, yet nobody said anything about it. We don’t know if ornamentation was used in the same way as it was with keyboard music. It leaves plenty of room for our interpretation.”

Fretwork performs the program In Nomine at Christ Church Cathedral on Friday (October 21).