The personality we knew as Bernard Herrmann played quite a colorful and
dramatic role on the stage of 20th century life and music.
In constructing a horoscope, a difficulty exists when
you do not have a verifiable timed birth, as is the case for Herrmann. It is not an
insurmountable one, however. Steve Rivkin, the genealogist and a great nephew of
Herrmann’s, assured me that he had a copy of Bernard’s birth certificate from the State of
New York. As I expected, there was no time notated on the document stating when
exactly he was born, (New York did not start adding timed births until the Forties). Steve
did not have a copy of the hospital record, if it still exists.
I began to experiment on what is called rectification or the ascertaining of a timed
birth by trying to match the events of the life with (usually) the progressed or current
events symbolized as astrological aspects.