The music was set to text adapted from Walt Whitman's poem "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd", a process Higdon described in the score program notes as "a near impossible task".
Reviewing the world premiere, Allan Kozinn of The New York Times called Dooryard Bloom "a substantial new score" and praised Higdon's vocal and orchestra writing.
Kozinn added, "Most crucially, though, her setting matches and magnifies the charged emotional arc of Whitman's text, with its inexorable passion, its submerged anger and the peaceful acceptance of its final lines.
"[5] David Patrick Stearns of The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "a thoroughly attractive piece," but added:Higdon maintained respectful but not impersonal distance from the words with near-conversational vocal lines, almost like a poetry reading with bits of tunes.
That could have seemed glib were there not so much picturesque writing in the orchestra, which was often divided into chamber ensembles of unusual combinations, like a trio consisting of oboe, vibraphone and harp.