Laments [Threnoi], three poems by Jan Kochanowski for voice and instrumental ensemble, 1962.

The first version of Laments was written already in 1951, but the surviving manuscript score contains the composer’s comment saying: "It is but an initial version, withdrawn from circulation and quite poor". The second revision was made in 1962 and published by the PWM in 1997. In 1973 Palester introduced some more changes.

The three songs, all in slow tempos (Molto lento, Lento grave and Grave) and less than ten minutes long, are an example of the composer’s expressionist interests. Palester chose three of Kochanowski’s poems: Laments nos. 2, 11 and 12. The theme of death, previously raised in the Requiem, keeps reoccurring in his works. In Laments the idea of death is stressed particularly strongly by the three-note G sharp-B-G motif, which the composer himself referred to as the death motif.

The first version of Laments was performed by Eugenia Zareska accompanied by the composer himself on the Radio Free Europe about 1955. The second version was not premiered until 1983. The performance took place in Cracow with Ewa Kowalczyk-Pawlik as the soloist, accompanied by Capella Cracoviensis under Stanisław Gałoński.