Bach structured the Pentecost cantata in six movements and scored it for three solo voices, a four-part choir and Baroque instrumental ensemble of two flutes, strings and continuo. Unusually for Bach's church cantatas, the work is not concluded by a chorale: a setting of the final stanza of the hymn "" by Anarg zu Wildenfels is instead in the penultimate position, followed by a chorus. The dance influence from the secular model is reflected in the passepied-like second movement, the minuet of the fourth, and the gavotte of the last.
