Shortly after the March 1958 premiere of Witold Lutosławski's Muzyka żałobna (Music of Mourning) for string ensemble, young music critic Bohdan Pilarski proclaimed that the performance marked a ‘New Celebration of Polish Music’. Beyond providing a description or analysis in his review, Pilarski seemed most concerned that his audience would grasp this work's significance. Muzyka żałobna represented a sea-change, setting a new standard by which future compositions would be judged in post-war Poland:

Pilarski offers Muzyka żałobna as evidence that Lutosławski was a composer who was not satisfied merely to ply his craft, or to work within the bounds of musical conventions. Rather, he was driven to defy those conventions and to write music that would express his original creative voice. This was music that was truly new; it had the power to change everything, revitalizing and reinvigorating Polish musical tradition to an extent that had not been seen, in Pilarski's estimation, since the interwar efforts of Karol Szymanowski (1882–1937).

Pilarski's review was by no means unique in its praise of Lutosławski's composition. Indeed, many Polish critics of various ages and aesthetic orientations greeted Muzyka żałobna with enthusiasm. They pointed to the work as a sign that Polish music was moving in a new direction: it was moving away from the stultifying aesthetic isolationism and socialist-realist conservatism of the Stalinist period and towards an active participation with contemporary, international (Western) musical culture. As the composer of this piece, Lutosławski found himself suddenly elected to genius status, the latest in a line of Polish genius-composers stretching back to Fryderyk Chopin. Critics and other composers expected him to lead Polish music forward, but not through the blind pursuit of progress. Rather, they wanted him to synthesize new musical languages – and, in particular, dodecaphony – within a Polish cultural tradition.