Schubert's setting of Karl Leitner's "Das Weinen" (Weeping) (D. 926) was composed sometime after Schubert's summer vacation in 1827. In a letter to Maria Placher, Schubert's hostess for that vacation, Schubert's friend Johann Jenger wrote that Das Weinen and several other songs were dedicated to her as a token of his gratitude for her hospitality. Apparently, it was Placher who had introduced Schubert to the poems of Leitner and Das Weinen was one of many songs from the last year of Schubert's life written to Leitner's poems. A strophic song setting all four verses of the poem to the same choral-like music, Das Weinen is not one of Schubert's greatest Leitner songs. In D major and with internal modulations to B minor and F sharp minor—keys that, in keeping with Schubert's usual practice, are a third apart from the tonic—there is something a little too pat about Schubert's vocal melody, something almost maudlin about his text setting, something almost self-pitying about the relentless tread of the rhythm. Das Weinen just doesn't attain the transcendent emotions of Des Fischers Liebesglück or Die Sterne, much less the profound depth of Vor meiner Wiege, Der Kreuzzug, or Der Winterabend.

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