The Deutsche Messe (German Mass), D 872, is a hymn cycle by Franz Schubert written in 1827, the year before his death at age 31. It sets a sequence of non-liturgical poems, one or more of which could be used separately during Mass. The poems were written by Johann Philip Neumann who, on behalf of the Polytechnic School of Vienna, commissioned Schubert to set them in such a way that any congregation should be able to use them. The hymn cycle is simple, suitable and appealing (though also before its time, as the church never permitted this unauthorized work to be used during Mass.) While it does not have the scope or depth of one of Schubert's great masses, this work's sincerity and straightforward, gentle beauty is disarming.