Later in 1977 Krzysztof Penderecki, asked which contemporary composers he liked, said: "I like Boulez's last piece "Rituel", because it's like Messiaen; Boulez seems to have changed his style." Paul Griffiths wrote of the work's "awesome grandeur", calling it "a curious throwback to the world of Messiaen, and especially to that of "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum", Messiaen's own liturgy of solos and ensembles with percussion." However, according to Griffiths, "Rituel" "is neither a celebration of resurrection nor a venturing into new worlds: it is a memorial. In paying tribute to Bruno Maderna, the first of the central Darmstadt band to have died, it seems to throw a wreath over the whole enterprise of the 1950s and 1960s."