Answer

The music is supposed to represent a swan, which it is said only sings before it dies. There's a famous poem that Orlando Gibbons set to music hundreds of years ago which says:

The silver swan, who living had no note,
When death approached unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
Thus sung her first and last, and sung no more:
Farewell, all joys;
O death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live,
more fools than wise.

The music was The Swan from Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens.

Pianists Mona and Renee Golabek. Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals (great version with 14 actors reading the Ogden Nash poetry) Romantic Hours label

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