Cantata No. 115 ("Make thyself ready, my spirit") belongs to the second annual cycle of cantatas composed by Bach in Leipzig, being of the so-called "chorale cantatas" that characterize that group of works. Written for the twenty-second Sunday after Trinity, it was first performed on November 5, 1724. The Gospel for the day is the parable of the unjust steward (Matthew 18:21-35), but the text, which takes its point of departure from a hymn (chorale) by Johann Burchard Freystein, makes no direct reference to the story. Instead it concentrates of exhorting the soul to beware the wiles of Satan by means of prayer, and prepare for the Last Judgment. Bach uses six of the ten stanzas of the hymn, opening, as is customary in the chorale cantatas, with a fantasia in which the melody of hymn (attributed to the seventeenth-century German composer Johann Rosenmüller) appears throughout as a cantus firmus in the soprano line. The alto, tenor, and bass choral parts supported by flute, oboe d'amore, strings and continuo have free, often highly contrapuntal parts. The da capo aria for alto which follows, "Ach, schläfrige Seele" ("Ah, sleepy soul") is a graphic call to the slumberous soul to awaken and beware of danger, the rocking siciliana rhythm and repeated bass notes redolent of the steady pulsation of sleep. The contrasting central section is an allegro warning of the punishment awaiting the unwary. An extended bass recitative leads to the second aria, where the mood turns to one of prayer ("Pray yet also"). This exquisitely tender and highly expressive soprano aria, marked Molto adagio, is supported only by flute, viola pomposa (an instrument with a range lying between viola and cello), and continuo. A brief tenor recitative leads to the final chorale, an unadorned setting of a strophe from the hymn on which the cantata is based with the same instrumentation as that employed in the opening chorus.

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