This is one of the finest of works ever written by a fourteen-year-old boy. It was premiered by one of the world's leading conductors, Arthur Nikisch, who conducted the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. It was the young Wunderkind's first work that he fully orchestrated himself. It is in a late Romantic style, with nicely differentiated themes: A first theme with energy and an agitated mood and a subsidiary theme in waltz time. The tone of the work is upbeat and jolly, even though it seems to have serious purpose. The orchestration is the big surprise: It is clear and imaginative.

The title of the work can be translated "Dramatic Overture." There is a legend that the work is programmatic, inspired by Shakespeare's play, Twelfth Night. This, it turns out, was a story made up by the composer's father, the Viennese music critic Julius Korngold. His Berlin colleague Bekker, who had been engaged to write the program notes for the Berlin Philharmonic's premiere, had asked Julius for information to help him in that task. Julius thought it would help Bekker, so made up the Twelfth Night story on the spot.

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