The Lacrimosa, dedicated to the trade union leader Lech Wałęsa, was written for the unveiling of a statue at the Gdańsk Shipyard to commemorate those killed in the Polish anti-government riots in 1970.

One of the better-known works by Penderecki, the mass largely follows the liturgical Latin of the requiem format with the addition of Święty Boże, the Polish translation of the Trisagion.

Penderecki responded with the Lacrimosa, dedicated to Lech Wałęsa, which he later expanded into this requiem, writing other parts in honour of different patriotic events.

[5] The completed Requiem was first performed on 17 September 2005 in Wroclaw, during Wratislavia Cantans 2005, by Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice, under the direction of the composer himself.

But Penderecki followed the liturgical Latin of the Requiem (Mass for the deceased) and expanded it by the Trisagion in Polish, Święty Boże, a "supplication sung in Poland in moments of danger"[7] that appears in a separate movement (Offertorium) and also in the Recordare.

Regina Chłopicka, an author of studies on Penderecki's music, wrote about his work in relation to earlier funeral masses: He reaches out for a number of traditional elements, yet transforms them, builds a new hierarchy and subjugates grand dramatic forms of a monumental, theatrical character to his own, original concept.

Instead of God, however, this theatre puts man in the centre, and focuses on his vacillation between hope and doubt and faith and despair and his pursuit of universal values and of the sense of existence.