Schubert's setting of Schiller's Hymne an den Unendlichen (Hymn to the Unending) (D. 232) from July 1815 is the most serious of his Schiller songs of that year. Indeed, it is one of Schubert's most sublime and idealized portraits of humanity's relationship with God, or, more specifically, of Schubert's relationship with his pantheistic deity. Setting the three verses of Schiller's poem as a three-strophe hymn, Schubert poured all his profound understanding of the human condition into this composition for soprano, alto, tenor, and bass. With its literally awe-inspiring melodies intertwining contrapuntally above a rapturous piano accompaniment, Schubert's three-minute hymn matches the exalted scale and magnitude of the majestic slow movement of his Symphony in C major. Yet it is not the Christian God the song addresses, nor could it be a church choir that addresses Him: Schiller's God is revealed in nature and Schubert's setting could hardly be sung by a church choir in Catholic Austria. Schubert has written a work to his God and he has written it to be sung only by his friends.

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