Kornél Ábrányi Snr, a friend of the celebrated composer, wrote, “this dramatic masterpiece captures with such fidelity the mourning of the nation,” that it made Mosonyi “a celebrated national composer overnight”. The piano score of the funeral march appeared just three weeks after the “greatest Hungarian”, Count István Széchenyi died on 8 April 1860. Mosonyi is said to have written the piece in a single day. The orchestral version is dated August the same year, and the work received its première in December, under the baton of Ferenc Erkel.