Sibelius was 27 and a half years old and climbing fast up the Finnish music ladder when he received a commission from a local student society (the Wiborg, or Viipuri Society of Helsinki) to compose some incidental music for an upcoming celebration of Karelian history. (Karelia was and is a geographical locale midway between Finland and Russia, an area which has been claimed by both at various times.) The occasion featured a miniature play in seven scenes, and Sibelius was asked to produce a corresponding seven items of music, plus an overture. He undertook the project with a passion, and the resulting music is both the first incidental music ever written by Sibelius—the first in a very long and distinguished series of such works, culminating in 1925's The Tempest—and also the first published music of his to bear the strong nationalist imprint that characterizes so much of his music from the 1890s and early 1900s.

Not all of the Karelia music was actually published, however. Sibelius drew up a three-movement Suite (Op. 11), and prepared the Karelia Overture for publication as Op. 10; the rest of the pieces he abandoned to their fate (which turned out to be unpublished obscurity). Once a proud and oft-heard work, the Karelia Overture fell into disuse during the latter half of the twentieth century—it can no longer claim a fame as great is the Suite's, but it still makes a fine concert opener.

In C major, the overture is scored for an orchestra of ordinary size and build (woodwinds in pairs, brass in the customary 4-3-3-1 layout, timpani, moderate percussion, and strings). The sonata-form overture blueprint is expanded so that three rather than two themes might be offered. The first is a rising idea with some energetic triplets in Allegro moderato tempo. The second is a folkish lyric strain that first appears in E minor but later reappears in C minor; Sibelius moves briefly from duple to triple meter for this Nordic melody, which is sung by the first violins and cellos in octaves. The third theme is an intruder from the first movement of the Karelia Suite, Op. 11 (the Intermezzo)—a martial idea meant to represent tax collectors in the original incidental music, it is first offered in the overture by the horns and then taken up by the entire woodwind section, and then makes frequent reappearances.

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