The CD entitled ‘Le Clavecin Moderne - New Polish Music for Solo Harpsichord’ is the first CD in the career of Alina Ratkowska, a harpsichord player, devoted to the contemporary Polish music for the harpsichord solo. Many compositions complied in the album were either performed by Ms Ratkowska for the first time, or dedicated to her. The CD proves that the harpsichord which is primarily associated with early music has the potential to inspire contemporary authors, too. There is a side to the instrument which places it in the midst of most recent music.
The same goes for Ms Ratkowska: a graduate of the Academy of Music in Warsaw and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel and laureate of first prizes at renowned early music competitions she now comes as a remarkable interpreter of music composed contemporarily. She has found the contemporary music fascinating, as she herself reveals in the preface to the CD: Entrusted with premiere performances of the pieces, I found myself in the world totally unknown to me before, fascinating as it turned out to be. I have settled in that world for good. The names of the authors whose music is recorded on the CD, namely: Milosz Bembinow, Bartosz Kowalski, Edward Sielicki, Pawel Lukaszewski, Anna Ignatowicz-Glinska, Marian Sawa, and Jacek Grudzien, evidence that the harpsichord inspires the most esteemed Polish contemporary composers. Ms Ratkowska decided to record the music on copies of the historic instruments instead of the pedal harpsichord of the 20th century. The Le Clavecin Moderne CD seems to be an answer to the question about the potential the harpsichord offers to contemporary composers and the way in which it can be used outside the world of early music.