The organ version was both commissioned and premiered by Eric DeLamarter at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago on October 20, 1916.
Because the piece was so well received, DeLamarter then asked the composer for an orchestral version, which he led in an all-Sowerby concert in Chicago in January 1917.
With the score's publication in 1919 by the Boston Music Company, writes Francis Crociata of the Leo Sowerby Foundation, Comes Autumn Time was soon performed "in Boston by Pierre Monteux, Philadelphia by Stokowski, Minneapolis by Ganz, New York by Damrosch, London by Harty and Wood, Berlin by Rosbaud, and Vienna by Bruno Walter."
The work opens with an exuberant and lively theme played on the bass clarinet, horns, and low strings.
A transition in the woodwinds bring on the second main subject, iterated by flutes and celesta against a harp and clarinet background.