The outer movements of the cantata are set for mixed choir and an orchestra consisting of trumpet, two oboes, strings and continuo.

In Bach's time Protestant Leipzig observed three Marian feasts requiring figural music [de].

Several traditions regarding these Marian feasts, such as the selection of readings for the church services, were continued from the period before Leipzig had adopted Lutheranism.

Cantatas with a text in the native language had, since the early 18th century, become the dominant genre of figural music in Reformed German regions.

Practices rooted in older traditions included the occasional performance of a Latin Magnificat on occasions such as Marian Feasts or Christmas.

[3] Meine Seel erhebt den Herren, BWV 10, for Visitation, is the fifth chorale cantata Bach presented in 1724.

The singing tune associated with that version of the Magnificat, a German variant of the tonus peregrinus, appears in Bach's composition.

[2] In Bach's time, the German Magnificat was regularly sung in Leipzig in vespers in a four-part setting of the ninth psalm tone (tonus peregrinus) by Johann Hermann Schein.

[6][7] In the format of the chorale cantata cycle, an unknown librettist retained some parts of Luther's wording, while he paraphrased other passages for recitatives and arias.

[15][16] BWV 189, a Visitation cantata on a libretto that paraphrases the text of the Magnificat canticle, also seems rather to have been composed by Hoffmann than by Bach, to whom this work used to be attributed.

[28] Besides transposing, he also applied a few modifications: for instance in the movement that has Luke 1:54 as text he replaced the trumpet as performer of the cantus firmus by two oboes.

[35][36] This characteristic sets BWV 10 apart from Bach's other chorale cantatas, which as a rule contained quotes from Lutheran hymns, not from biblical prose.

For the next occasion, St. John's Day, Bach wrote a cantata with an opening movement in the style of an Italian violin concerto, in which the cantus firmus was given to the tenor.

Nonetheless, Dürr writes about BWV 10 (here rendered in Richard D. P. Jones' translation): "if ever a work deserved the description 'chorale cantata' it is this, for it is based on a genuine (Gregorian) chorale melody".

[44] Bach's second year in Leipzig passed without composing a chorale cantata specifically for the fourth Sunday after Trinity.

He composed one for this occasion in 1732, Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 177, one of the later additions to the chorale cantata cycle.

The orchestra of typical baroque instruments is listed on the folder containing the original parts as follows: "Festo Visitationis | Mariae | Meine Seel erhebt den Herren.

[34] The chorus enters after 12 measures with "Meine Seel erhebt den Herren" (My soul magnifies the Lord).

[57] The cantus firmus is in the soprano, doubled by a trumpet, whereas the lower voices add free polyphony on motifs from the introduction.

[58] The soprano aria "Herr, der du stark und mächtig bist" (Lord, you who are strong and mighty)[57] is a concerto of the voice and the oboes, accompanied by the strings.

[58] The thought that God "also uses force with His arm" is expressed with emphasis, and the final "will be scattered like straw by His hand" is an extended coloratura.

[38] The following aria "Gewaltige stößt Gott vom Stuhl" (The mighty God casts from their thrones)[57] is set for bass and continuo.

[59] In the fifth movement, "Er denket der Barmherzigkeit" (He remembers his mercy),[57] the text returns to the original German Magnificat, and the music to the psalm tone.

Klaus Hofmann interprets the bass line of "emphatic downward semitone intervals" as "sighs of divine mercy".

Starting with the added words "Sein Same mußte sich so sehr wie Sand am Meer und Stern am Firmament ausbreiten, der Heiland ward geboren" (His seed must be scattered as plentifully as sand on the shore and as stars in the firmament, the Savior was born),[57] the lively chords of the added strings emphasize the importance of the promise kept.

[62][54] The score, previously owned by Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Philipp Spitta and Paul Wittgenstein, among others, came in the possession of the Library of Congress in 1948.

[67][68] The music of the cantata's closing movement is included in the Dietel collection, a 1730s manuscript containing 149 of Bach's four-part chorales.

[75][8] The cantata was also published with a singable English version of the text: Karl Richter programmed BWV 10 along Bruckner's 150th Psalm at his first concert in Ottobeuren in 1957.

[93] The same year, a concert at the Indiana University combined Bach's Meine Seel erhebt den Herren cantata with a 2005 Magnificat by Sven-David Sandström.

[94] Gustav Leonhardt, Pieter-Jan Leusink and Ton Koopman used period instruments for their complete Bach cantata recordings.