Whoa, thanks to your comment, which helpfully illustrates some of the "poetic" aspects of the digits' decimal arrangement, I became instantly convinced the digi

Whoa, thanks to your comment, which helpfully illustrates some of the "poetic" aspects of the digits' decimal arrangement, I became instantly convinced the digits of pi are the theme on which Elgar wrote his "Enigma" Variations. It's mentioned on Wikipedia but pretty far down as a recent theory (the source is here[0]). But now I feel almost foolish for not thinking it before. Quoting Wikipedia, "on the evening of 21 October 1898, after a tiring day's teaching, he sat down at the piano. A melody he played caught the attention of his wife, and he began to improvise variations on it in styles which reflected the character of some of his friends." It's pretty easy to imagine he was just plinking out scale degrees corresponding to the digits of pi in a pleasing rhythm and one thing led to another. [0]https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8377M82/download https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/doi/10.7916/D8377M82/do...