Der Taucher (The Diver, D. 111) has the distinction of being Schubert's longest song. Nearly half an hour long in performance, the work sets Schiller's 27-verse narrative poem as a sort of house-bound opera. Schiller's ballade takes the standard ingredients from medieval romances—a tyrannical king, a beautiful princess, a valiant knight, a heroic quest—and creates from them a brave tale that ends in defeat and despair. Schubert's setting is simply tremendous. He makes each character wholly believable; he makes each melodramatic turn of the story wholly creditable; he makes the incidents of the story plausible; and, best of all, his music is consistently powerful and affecting. It is easy to believe that Schubert worked on Der Taucher for more than a year from September 1813 to the end of 1814, longer than he took over any other single project. The miracle is that the music flows so easily and inevitably and so brilliantly embodies every facet of Schiller's poem. And the bigger miracle is that Schubert was only 16 when he began composing Der Taucher.

Ultimately, Schubert set Der Taucher twice. Interestingly, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau chose to record the first version (D. 77) with interpolated piano interludes from the second version, while Graham Johnson chose to record the second version (D. 111).

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