The universal experience of death has for millennia been associated with music. Wind instruments, in particular, have been the media of choice for many funeral music genres.

A proper historical outlook on funeral music begins prior to biblical history and continues through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque, stylistically culminating in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Classical-to-Romantic transition years ultimately became a defining period for the Funeral March genre as the musical language was crystallized.

Funeral music types include both processional music and graveside subtypes—functional categories that intersect with two super-genres, the Funeral March and the Lament. The Funeral March class includes the Dead March, the Pompe Funèbre, and the Equale; the Lament includes a broader range of genres such as the Planctus, the Déploration, the Dump, the Elegy, the Tombeau, the Threnody, and the Nanie.

The slate of musical topoi (topics) common in the Classical period includes the Funeral March, which in its purest form may be clearly defined in terms of rhythmic, melodic, and other musical characteristics. Although the Funeral March is readily described and delineated, such music was not confined to functional, independent works; it was also found re-appropriated in many other genres—including opera, keyboard sonatas, and symphonies—that were intended primarily for the concert hall.