Some strange figures seems to arise when one looks at the distribution of Composers' birthdays by month. Of the 700 or so composers for whom I have a reliable birth date in my database this is the frequency by month: Jan: 74, 2.4 Feb: 67, 2.39 Mar: 58, 1.87 Apr: 62, 2.07 May: 61, 1.97 Jun: 61, 2.03 Jul: 47, 1.52 Aug: 49, 1.58 Sep: 53, 1.77 Oct: 61, 1.97 Nov: 65, 2.17 Dec: 69, 2.23 The second figure in the column is a frequency of birth by day per month, levelling out the number of days per month (28-31). I am not a statistician; but it seems to me that there must be some explanation of why the birth rate for January is almost 60% higher than for July. If one selects composers born before 1850 the discrepancy becomes even greater with January and December both having 26 and July and August 11 and 15 respectively. That is a difference of 100% between mid-winter and mid-summer!! Does any one know: Are these numbers reflected in the general (European)population? Do you think it might have something to do with nutrition as it would have been related to the weather in Europe. Or is it just the influence of the Spring having its effect nine months later? Could the time of birth actually have something to do with musical ability? I would not like to believe it has anything to do with astrology!! Cheers Gerry [I think it's just spring fever. I did a similar analysis back in 1993, and those results can be found at Classical Net in the Composer Works/Data section as List #1. My results were very similar, though my composer database has expanded by almost a factor of two and so the analysis needs updating. -Dave]