24, is a cantata[2] (officially "lyrical suite")[a] for narrator, soprano, baritone, mixed choir, and orchestra written in 1940 by Swedish composer Lars-Erik Larsson.

[8][7][4] One such radio program was the Times of Day (Dagens stunder), which included poems by—among others—Verner von Heidenstam and Oscar Levertin; Larsson subsequently excerpted his original music as the Pastoral Suite (Pastoralsvit; Op.

[9] To build on this success, Gullberg approached Larsson at a Christmas party in 1938 about the possibility of expanding the lyrical suite to include parts for vocal soloists and chorus—that is, to be transform it into a quasi-cantata; he suggested the composer set God in Disguise (Förklädd gud), a narrative poem from his 1933 anthology Love in the Twentieth Century [sv] (Kärlek i tjugonde seklet).

"Wear[ing] no wreath around his golden hair", he settles in Thessaly, "disguised ... among the serving-folk" as a flute-playing "goodly" shepherd who "bears his burden on earth ... without complaint".

Ej för krigare men bönder som ha plöjt sin jordlott utan att klaga, spelar en gud på flöjt.

It is a Grecian fable ... God in Disguise is thus a "protest against violence" that "inspired in listeners a sense of calm and confidence during dark times and instilled in them the firm hope that truth and right would eventually prevail",[12] or as the seventh poem states: Än vandrar gudar över denna jord.

Den regeln har ej blivit överträdd: är Gud på jorden, vandrar han förklädd.So gods are wandering yet upon the earth.