This funeral march for orchestra was written early in 1894, shortly following the death in November, 1893 of the composer Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky. The older composer was more than the obvious model for Glazunov's strongly lyrical style. Tchaikovsky was (despite what we know of his often depressive nature) very well-liked in social circles because he was an amiable person, sympathetic and helpful to his musician colleagues, very encouraging to younger artists. Tchaikovsky's death, coming suddenly a week after the premiere of his Sixth symphony (recognized for its greatness by musicians at the same time its slow, despairing finale puzzled concertgoers), was especially shocking, although there is no reliable basis for tales that the death was a suicide.

The cortège is a solemn processional march, exactly what one would expect from the title with one exception, its use of the Major mode. A little over fifteen years later Glazunov wrote the second of his works with this title, for another of his composer role models, his teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

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