At dawn two days after his brother's death, Ferdinand wrote to their father, “Very many people have expressed the wish that the body of our good Franz be buried in the sacred ground of Währing Cemetery. I too am among them, because I believe Franz himself made this request.” In a delirium before he died, Schubert did not know where he was and cried out, “This is not where Beethoven lies.” For Ferdinand this could be nothing more than “an indication of his last wish to be buried beside Beethoven, whom he so greatly revered.” Ferdinand informed his father that he had already explored the expenses involved, which although very high were “surely very little for Franz!” He offered to pay more than half the cost himself (SDB 825).

The composer's final wish, at least according to Ferdinand's interpretation, was granted. Schubert was buried later that day, without much pomp and circumstance, following a well-attended funeral, but one that hardly attracted tens of thousands of mourners, as Beethoven's had just twenty months earlier. Schubert's Pax vobiscum (D551), fitted with new words by Schober, was played at the church. Schubert was buried in the new Währing Cemetery, and his grave placed as close to Beethoven's as possible, just three away. A memorial service the next month featured a Mass by Anselm Hüttenbrenner (SMF 121, 190), and plans were announced to raise money for a fitting funeral monument. On 30 January 1829, the eve of Schubert's thirty-second birthday, Anna Fröhlich, Vogl, Böhm, Linke, and other musician friends presented a memorial concert in the hall where Schubert's own academy of 26 March 1828 had taken place (SDB 851); they offered a quite similar program, presenting it again six weeks later.