This was Glazunov's last orchestral composition save one. Increasingly subject to alcoholism and depression, he would flee to the West after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and lose much of his creative drive. He wrote just one more completed orchestral work, The "Poème epique" of 1934.

Glazunov, a highly talented musician with an extraordinarily receptive musical memory and keen ear, abs0rbed diverse influences but did not adequately shape them into a distinctive personal voice. His music is well crafted, but often sounds either second-hand or outdated. This is a work with considerable strength but says little that had not already been expressed in his earlier "Finnish Sketches," and Finnish Fantasy." These three works bespeak a long-standing fascination with this eastern portion of Finland. At the time the "Karelian Legend" was written Finland was breaking away from the Russian Empire; its status was that of a semi-independent Duchy within the Empire and it has recently gained some measure of self-rule. Karelia was disputed between this Duchy and Russia proper. Finland got a lot of it when it gained independence. After Stalin make his infamous peace treaty with Hitler, he invaded Finland and by the end of World War II Russia had seized all of it.

Sibelius claimed it, musically, in his fine Karelia Suite, op 9 (1893). It is telling that in Sibelius's composition, nearly a quarter-century older than Glazunov's, still sounds fresher and more contemporary. Glazunov's work is actually pretty good. It is based on themes of the region, is imaginatively scored, and evokes the openness of the region.

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