Flight of the Bumblebee

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"Flight of the Bumblebee"

"Flight of the Bumblebee" performed by the US Army Band

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"Flight of the Bumblebee" (Russian: Полёт шмеля) is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900. This perpetuum mobile is intended to musically evoke the seemingly chaotic and rapidly changing flying pattern of a bumblebee. Despite the piece's being a rather incidental part of the opera, it is today one of the more familiar classical works because of its frequent use in popular culture.

The piece closes Act III, Tableau 1, during which the magic Swan-Bird changes Prince Gvidon Saltanovich (the Tsar's son) into an insect so that he can fly away to visit his father (who does not know that he is alive). Although in the opera the Swan-Bird sings during the first part of the "Flight", her vocal line is melodically uninvolved and easily omitted; this feature, combined with the fact that the number decisively closes the scene, made easy extraction as an orchestral concerto piece possible.^{[not verified in body][clarification needed]}