For those familiar only with the early music of Lutoslawski—such as the widely admired Concerto for Orchestra—or with the later symphonies and "Chain" pieces, the Musique funèbre ("Funeral Music in memoriam Bela Bartók") for string orchestra (1958) will be something of a surprise. The early folk-like music—relating strongly to the music of Bartók and of a great Polish predecessor, Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937)—was conservative by necessity, since the repressive Communist government regnant after World War II allowed very little in the way of artistic freedom. But something of a political "thaw" set in after 1956, and Lutoslawski was one of dozens of Polish composers who responded by radically exploring avant-garde developments. The result is Lutoslawski's only important 12-tone work. Musique funèbre doesn't sound as dry or doctrinaire as most of the other serialist music from its time, but it takes an expressive performance to bring out its unique power.

The work has four sections (each titled in Lutoslawski's beloved French), the last three of which proceed to the next without pause. The lugubrious, flowing "Prologue," an homage to the first movement of Bartók's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, lays out the twelve-tone row in strict canon. The first version is played by two solo cellos in canon at the half note, the second stated a few bars later by solo viola. As each row is made up only of the intervals of semitone and tritone, it gives the entire movement a singular harmonic palette which, due to the constant and consistent up-down jumping of such a linear series, often gives the impression of moving in sequences. After the entire string orchestra has joined in, the movement reaches an extended climax by stretching out into broader rhythms and by limiting the pitches in use to only F and B; it then quickly dies out on those two notes.

The "Métamorphoses" that follow, which have a theme-and-variations quality to them, seem to get faster and faster, though in fact the rhythmic values just get smaller and smaller—the movement's tempo never actually changes. The music's linear intervals are more various in this movement, with richer and more interesting harmonies the result; as in the first movement, moments of stasis are achieved by carefully timed repetitions of important pitch groups.

The drama of the "Métamorphoses" builds and builds until it reaches its effective climax, the "Apogée" movement. The rough concentration of this music, marked fff, is achieved by using massive 12-note chords (a preview of Lutoslawski's later style): variety comes from the masterful use of widely differing registers and rhythmic durations, making each sonority sound different from its neighbors. The music then rapidly climbs down from the heights and, at the "Epilogue," gathers into a powerful unison statement of the 12-tone row from the opening movement. After the restatement of some material from the opening, the music dies out, with a solo cello sifting four final pitches until each is left behind, like a ghost.

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