Impressionist landscape painting with cypress trees, olive trees, wheat field, and swirling clouds.

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Flight of the Bumblebee

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Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Flight of the Bumblebee

  • Flight of the Bumblebee - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Arranged for Solo Piano
  • Flight of the Bumblebee - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Arranged for Strings
  • Flight of the Bumblebee - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - Arranged for Violin
    • The piano arrangement on which these recordings are based were created by the late Hiroshi Munekawa and made available to the public on his website, Piano1001.com. The site included a clear statement granting a free, public license for any non-commercial use, handling, and redistribution of his work. In the spirit of his generosity, and to help preserve his musical legacy, these new recordings are also shared under a non-commercial license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0.

    Recorded, produced, and published by: Gregor Quendel
    © 2025 CLASSICALS.DE EXCLUSIVE RECORDINGS
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Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889) Vincent van Gogh

"Flight of the Bumblebee" is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908) for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899–1900. Its composition is intended to musically evoke the seemingly chaotic and rapidly changing flying pattern of a bumblebee. Despite the piece 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

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_of_the_Bumblebee / License: CC BY-SA 4.0

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