[3] Bach structured the cantata in six movements, scored for four vocal soloists (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and four-part choir, and a Baroque instrumental ensemble of cornetto, three trombones, two oboes, taille, two violins, viola and continuo.

[3][6] The cantata opens with an oboe trio playing an Italianate ritornello of four phrases, accompanied by the strings; the roles of the two choirs are later reversed.

[5] The music in stile antico was performed at the end of John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, who described its "sobriety and complexity, its buried treasures and subtleties, especially those that occur in its last fifty bars, in which you sense some immense cosmic struggle being played out".

The continuo opens the duet aria with a two-part ritornello – dancing eighth notes followed by fast arpeggiated figures – that is repeated three more times during this movement.

[7] Gardiner, who had conducted several versions during the Pilgrimage, notes the moving power of this harmonisation of the "prayer for protection and sustenance in the year to come".