Marked Ruhig und fromm (Restful and holy), Schubert's setting of Karl Leitner's "Der Kreuzzug" (The Crusader) (D. 932) is one of the most understated and yet profoundly moving songs in his whole oeuvre. Der Kreuzzug sets Leitner's five-verse poem in a manner that at first seems strophic, but is more subtle and far more soulful than a mere strophic song. Although the pace and rhythm of the song hardly varies from verse to verse, Schubert's modulations move the music beyond the simply strophic. And although the melody of the opening two verses returns unchanged in the closing two verses, Schubert manages its re-appearance with consummate genius. Where in the opening verses the voice and the piano had had the same melody, the piano retains the melody in the closing verses and the voice sings a countermelody below it. Taken in context of Leitner's poem—a monk watching knights departing for the Crusades and his own reflections on his own personal spiritual crusade—the effect of having the monk singalong (in Graham Johnson's apt choice of words) is a master stroke.

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