About this work
The stream of chromatic semiquavers in Flight of the Bumblebee follows Prince Gvidon after he turns into a bumblebee in Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan. In this piano reduction of the orchestral interlude, the running line moves from the right hand to the left. Keep the touch even through the handover so the buzz carries straight through.
Practise the handover in bars 50 and 51 without the accompaniment. Keep a steady pulse as the line changes hands, then bring back the two detached quavers in the right hand. The running line reaches the high A in bar 99. The chord rolls upwards in both hands in bar 100, followed by the final As in octaves in bar 101.
Score and files
Solo piano reduction with a four-page PDF and a MIDI file made from the same score. The Noctave edition restores the repeat from Bessel’s vocal score. The edition’s files are released under CC0 1.0.
LesPartitions.info