Der Gottprotz (The God-swanker) is the thirteenth in a series of short works for solo instrument based upon characters in Der Ohrenzeuge: Fünfzig Charaktere (Earwitness: Fifty Characters), written in 1974 by the Bulgarian-born British-Austrian novelist Elias Canetti (1905-1994). Canetti’s distinctive studies incorporate poetic imagery, singular insights, and unabashed wordplay to create fifty ironic paradigms of human behavior. This collection, begun in 1997, was inspired by the vividly surreal depictions of Canetti’s characters, and comprises twenty-two solo works to date—composed for familiar instruments such as violin, guitar, piano, and trombone, as well as less common instruments such as ocarina, cimbalom, glass harmonica, and carillon. In Canetti's description of this character, "The God-swanker is a handsome man, with a voice and a mane.... [He] never has to ask himself what is correct, he looks it up in the Book of Books.... He does not have to worry about contradictions, they stand him in good stead.... When the God-swanker waxes furious... [he] stations himself erect with a bloated voice-sack as though standing personally on Mount Sinai and thunders and threatens and spews and flashes and shakes the riffraff to tears."

Der Gottprotz was completed in December 2014 and was first performed on 26 October 2018 at the University of North Texas Murchison Performing Arts Center Winspear Hall by organist S. Andrew Lloyd.