God in Disguise or A God Disguised (Swedish: Förklädd gud) (Op. 24) is a lyrical suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...

 composed in 1940 by Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson

Lars-Erik Larsson

Lars-Erik Larsson was a notable Swedish composer of the 20th century.-Biography:Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson was born in Åkarp in 1908...

 to lyrics by Hjalmar Gullberg

Hjalmar Gullberg

Hjalmar Gullberg was a Swedish writer, poet and translator of Greek drama into Swedish.Gullberg was born in Malmö, Skåne. As a student at Lund University, he was the editor of the student magazine Lundagård. He was the manager of the Swedish Radio Theatre 1936-1950...

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The suite is from the composer’s neo-romantic period and is one of the most well-loved pieces in Swedish music. It was written for the radio audience when Gullberg and Larsson were both employed by Swedish Radio. The setting is for orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

, mixed choir, soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 solo, baritone

Baritone

Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...

 solo and narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

. The premier performance took place on April 1 1940 on the radio. Soloists were Kerstin Torlind (soprano), Hugo Hasslo

Hugo Hasslo

Hugo Hasslo was a Swedish operatic baritone.Hasslo studied in Stockholm with Hjaldis Ingebjart and Joseph Hislop and made his debut at the Stockholm Opera, as Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, in 1940, where he remained until 1964, quickly establishing himself as first baritone.He was particularly...

 (baritone) and Olof Molander

Olof Molander

Olof Molander was a great and influential Swedish theatre- and film director, most notable for his many Strindberg and Shakespeare productions....

 (narrator). The Swedish Radio Choir

Swedish Radio Choir

The Swedish Radio Choir is a professional classical choir. It is funded by Sveriges Radio, the public radio broadcasting company of Sweden. The choir consists of 32 singers, currently led by conductor Peter Dijkstra.-Conductors:...

 and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a radio orchestra based in Stockholm, Sweden, and affiliated with Sveriges Radio . The orchestra broadcasts concerts on the Swedish Radio-P2 network....

 were conducted by the composer.

The lyrics are from the collection of poems Kärlek i tjugonde seklet ("Love in the 20th Century") from 1933 and based on a motif from ancient mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

 where the god Apollo

Apollo

Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 is doomed to appear as a human for one year and serve as farm hand with King Admetus

Admetus

In Greek mythology, Admetus was a king of Pherae in Thessaly, succeeding his father Pheres after whom the city was named. Admetus was one of the Argonauts and took part in the Calydonian Boar hunt. His wife Alcestis offered to substitute her own death for his.-Mythology:Admetus was famed for his...

 in Thessaly

Thessaly

Thessaly is a traditional geographical region and an administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia, and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey....

 in the drama Alcestis

Alcestis

Alcestis is a princess in Greek mythology, known for her love of her husband. Her story was popularised in Euripides's tragedy Alcestis. She was the daughter of Pelias, king of Iolcus, and either Anaxibia or Phylomache....

by Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

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Despite the fact that the work is a secular work it is often performed in churches and the text has many references to the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

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The music is published by Gehrmans Musikförlag with English translation by John Michael Hearne

John Michael Hearne

John Michael Hearne is a Scottish music publisher, composer, conductor and singer. He was the first Chairman of the Scottish Society of Composers, and was the Chairman of the Scottish Music Advisory Committee of the BBC from 1986 to 1990.-Notable works:...

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