Flight of the Bumblebee

"Flight of the Bumblebee" (Russian: Полёт шмеля) is an orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 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 is recognizable for its frantic pace when played up to tempo, with nearly uninterrupted runs of chromatic sixteenth notes.