At last the coffin with its precious load appeared in the doorway. Every head uncovered. Amid reverential and most impressive silence it was lifted on to the open funeral car […] Before the building of the “Society of the Friends of Music,” the procession halted. The doors and pillars were draped in black cloth. On either side of the portal, from metal bowls, resting on the top of high candelabra and filled with ignited spirit of wine, blue flames were flickering with a subdued, mystical light. From underneath a canopy the “Sing-Verein,” which so often had sung under the inspiring direction of the master, now sang his own beautiful part-song, “Farewell” (Op. 93A, No. 4).

               As the lovely strains rang out into the vernal air, there could be heard from the neighbouring trees the merry twittering of birds whose song seemed to have been kindled by the unwonted occurrence no less than by the approach of spring. At last, after a short choral service in the old church in the Dorotheer Gasse, the cemetery was reached. Another touching farewell, another song and the mortal remains of Johannes Brahms were lowered into their last resting-place, close to those of Beethoven and Schubert.