‘The Crusaders’ is the first[69] secular choral work after ‘Paradise and the Peri’ to compare in importance and in richness of content and treatment with Schumann’s fine composition. It easily takes rank among the strongest and most beautiful of nineteenth-century cantatas. It was written in 1866 and performed in Copenhagen the same year. In 1876 Gade conducted this work as well as his ‘Zion’ at the Birmingham Festival, England. The central motive of the poem by Carl Andersen (much of whose material is drawn from Tasso’s ‘Jerusalem Delivered’) is the temptation of the brave crusader Rinaldo d’Este by the sorceress Armida and her sirens and his triumph over the powers of evil. The personages are three in number, Rinaldo (tenor), Armida (mezzo-soprano), and Peter the Hermit (bass); and the work is divided into three parts--(1) In the desert, (2) Armida, and (3) Towards Jerusalem. The first part opens with a chorus of pilgrims and women from the crusaders’ host, depicting the long, weary march and the sufferings in the struggle to gain the distant goal. The encouraging voice of Peter the Hermit is heard (‘Soon our God success will send us’) and Rinaldo sings the stirring Crusaders’ Song (‘Shine, holy sun, shine on my trusty sword’), to each stanza of which the chorus adds a vigorous, war-like refrain. The Hermit leads the crusaders in an evening prayer of impressive strength, beauty, and exalted devotion, and thus the first part closes. The second part begins with a long orchestral introduction, descriptive of the direful influence of Armida’s magic charms. The spirits of darkness appear and, as they dance, sing a weird pianissimo chorus (‘Silent, creeping so light’). In a fine dramatic solo Armida outlines her plans for the ensnarement of Rinaldo. The sirens, in a three-part chorus, sing a melody of truly wonderful sensuous beauty (‘The wave sweeps my breast’) and their enticing voices are frequently heard in the tumultuous music of the temptation scene that follows. Armida sings in seductive tones ‘O Rinaldo, come to endless joy and rest.’ The brave knight’s senses are enthralled and he is on the point of yielding when he hears a strain of the Crusaders’ Song as from the distance. A powerful concerted number is built up from this point. Rinaldo wavers, the sturdy Crusaders’ Song and the voluptuous music of the sirens and Armida struggle for the mastery. The former becomes more insistent, the magic spell of the sorceress is broken, and Rinaldo, now thoroughly roused, joins fervently in the crusaders’ refrain, ‘Of heaven the faithful soldier am I ever.’ Like Wagner’s ‘Parsifal,’ with which this cantata has many points in common, the first and third parts of ‘The Crusaders’ build a religious frame for the vividly contrasting temptation scene of the middle part. The third part is introduced by a calm and devotional morning hymn of the crusaders, their faces fixed toward Jerusalem. The penitent Rinaldo again vows allegiance to the