Uploaded May 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Randolph Pitts’ composition “Concerto per pianoforte ad orchestra dedicato ad Anita DeFrancesco” is based on a musical cryptogram (Arthur Honegger system) of the name “Anita Marie DeFrancesco” (pictured here with the composer in a photograph by Amy Halpern, who passed away on 08-15-2022). The movements are i. Moderato appassionato; ii. Amoroso ma non tanto; iii. Largo desolato, andante rirgoroso, allegro furioso (attaca), morendo (calando). This musical cryptogram was then used as the basis for two twelve-tone rows, which the composer then subjected to the usual dodecaphonic transformations (Inversion, Retrograde, Retrograde Inversion). He also made derived rows from these employing the approach used by Anton von Webern in his Concerto (Op. 24) and elsewhere, as well as using pitch set class multiplication as used by Milton Babbitt and others. Randolph Pitts holds Summa Cum Laude degrees in Social Psychology and Egyptology from the University of California Berkeley, and a Masters Degree in Motion Picture Production and Entertainment Law from UCLA. He has also done advanced research for the Department of Psychology at UCLA, concentrating on couples and relationships dynamics. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association, the organization of university professors of Philosophy. He is also an associate member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Randolph has been a top executive at several entertainment companies, including a ten year stint as Chief Executive Officer of the company that produced Leaving Las Vegas for which Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award as best actor. The first volume of his eagerly anticipated tetralogy of novels will be published during 2022. Pitts' spellbinding novels deal at an unrelenting fever pitch with eroticism, mysticism, terrorism and crime on a global scale. And also… with women and men falling in love. Randolph Pitts has a lifelong interest in the relationship between philosophy, psychology and history. He is the founder and host of the Explore Ecstatic Sensuality podcast, the number one sex and sensuality podcast in the world. Randolph Pitts holds Summa Cum Laude degrees in Social Psychology and Egyptology from the University of California Berkeley, and a Masters Degree in Motion Picture Production and Entertainment Law from UCLA. He has also done advanced research for the Department of Psychology at UCLA, concentrating on couples and relationships dynamics. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association, the organization of university professors of Philosophy. He is also an associate member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Randolph has been a top executive at several entertainment companies, including a ten year stint as Chief Executive Officer of the company that produced Leaving Las Vegas for which Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award as best actor. The first volume of his eagerly anticipated tetralogy of novels will be published during 2022. Pitts' spellbinding novels deal at an unrelenting fever pitch with eroticism, mysticism, terrorism and crime on a global scale. And also… with women and men falling in love. In a recent interview Randolph Pitts said, “Love is the main theme of my novels. Women and men, women and women, come together because they recognize and come to cherish each other’s uniqueness. They fall in love because they know that the objects of their love are their special people – woman or man. The people who will make life joyful and fulfilling for them. The people with whom they will find mutual fulfillment and enduring happiness.” Randolph Pitts has a lifelong interest in the relationship between philosophy, psychology and history. He is the founder and host of the Explore Ecstatic Sensuality podcast, the number one sex and sensuality podcast in the world. As a composer he has written pieces in all genres, including works for vocal orchestra and soloists ("A Cabaret for Cesare Pavese,” dedicated to the memory of Constance Dowling; "Der Schatten eines Traumes," dedicated to Argyriou and based on a cryptogram of her name; "Das Buch der Blauen Rose,” dedicated to Cristie Strongman and based on a cryptogram of her name. He has also written chamber music (strings quartets and a sextet), a "Concerto for String Orchestra," dedicated to Anita DeFrancesco; the large orchestral piece "Love-- for Three Orchestras and Large Organ,” dedicated to Anita DeFrancesco, a chamber works for vocalist and small ensemble ("Le sang des rêves") dedicated to Cristie Strongman.
Randolph Pitts’ composition “Concerto per pianoforte ad orchestra dedicato ad Anita DeFrancesco” is based on a musical cryptogram (Arthur Honegger system) of the name “Anita Marie DeFrancesco” (pictured here with the composer in a photograph by Amy Halpern, who passed away on 08-15-2022). The movements are i. Moderato appassionato; ii. Amoroso ma non tanto; iii. Largo desolato, andante rirgoroso, allegro furioso (attaca), morendo (calando). This musical cryptogram was then used as the basis for two twelve-tone rows, which the composer then subjected to the usual dodecaphonic transformations (Inversion, Retrograde, Retrograde Inversion). He also made derived rows from these employing the approach used by Anton von Webern in his Concerto (Op. 24) and elsewhere, as well as using pitch set class multiplication as used by Milton Babbitt and others. Randolph Pitts holds Summa Cum Laude degrees in Social Psychology and Egyptology from the University of California Berkeley, and a Masters Degree in Motion Picture Production and Entertainment Law from UCLA. He has also done advanced research for the Department of Psychology at UCLA, concentrating on couples and relationships dynamics. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association, the organization of university professors of Philosophy. He is also an associate member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Randolph has been a top executive at several entertainment companies, including a ten year stint as Chief Executive Officer of the company that produced Leaving Las Vegas for which Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award as best actor. The first volume of his eagerly anticipated tetralogy of novels will be published during 2022. Pitts' spellbinding novels deal at an unrelenting fever pitch with eroticism, mysticism, terrorism and crime on a global scale. And also… with women and men falling in love. Randolph Pitts has a lifelong interest in the relationship between philosophy, psychology and history. He is the founder and host of the Explore Ecstatic Sensuality podcast, the number one sex and sensuality podcast in the world. Randolph Pitts holds Summa Cum Laude degrees in Social Psychology and Egyptology from the University of California Berkeley, and a Masters Degree in Motion Picture Production and Entertainment Law from UCLA. He has also done advanced research for the Department of Psychology at UCLA, concentrating on couples and relationships dynamics. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the American Philosophical Association, the organization of university professors of Philosophy. He is also an associate member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. Randolph has been a top executive at several entertainment companies, including a ten year stint as Chief Executive Officer of the company that produced Leaving Las Vegas for which Nicolas Cage won the Academy Award as best actor. The first volume of his eagerly anticipated tetralogy of novels will be published during 2022. Pitts' spellbinding novels deal at an unrelenting fever pitch with eroticism, mysticism, terrorism and crime on a global scale. And also… with women and men falling in love. In a recent interview Randolph Pitts said, “Love is the main theme of my novels. Women and men, women and women, come together because they recognize and come to cherish each other’s uniqueness. They fall in love because they know that the objects of their love are their special people – woman or man. The people who will make life joyful and fulfilling for them. The people with whom they will find mutual fulfillment and enduring happiness.” Randolph Pitts has a lifelong interest in the relationship between philosophy, psychology and history. He is the founder and host of the Explore Ecstatic Sensuality podcast, the number one sex and sensuality podcast in the world. As a composer he has written pieces in all genres, including works for vocal orchestra and soloists ("A Cabaret for Cesare Pavese,” dedicated to the memory of Constance Dowling; "Der Schatten eines Traumes," dedicated to Argyriou and based on a cryptogram of her name; "Das Buch der Blauen Rose,” dedicated to Cristie Strongman and based on a cryptogram of her name. He has also written chamber music (strings quartets and a sextet), a "Concerto for String Orchestra," dedicated to Anita DeFrancesco; the large orchestral piece "Love-- for Three Orchestras and Large Organ,” dedicated to Anita DeFrancesco, a chamber works for vocalist and small ensemble ("Le sang des rêves") dedicated to Cristie Strongman.
![René Koering, Quatuor No 2nd mouvement, largo [second movement of two]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jbpD3mJL9O8/mqdefault.jpg "René Koering, Quatuor No 2nd mouvement, largo [second movement of two]
On dit et on répète à tous les compositeurs depuis Beethoven que la forme du quatuor à cordes est la chose la plus difficile (les vrais pervers, après vous avoir asséné cette vérité historique, vous font savoir que la vraie difficulté est le trio à cordes mais que ce divertissement nest réservé quà la catégorie quatre étoiles des compositeurs).
Je pense au contraire quil y a dans laustère (et brillante) gymnastique de quatuor une première « facilité* qui est celle des vois intermédiaires (situées entre le dessus et la basse) nécessaires à tout épanouissement. Et que ces deux voix (voies), tellement indispensables à la plénitude du discours ne sont vraiment exploitables que dans la formule du quatuor à cordes. En effet, le répartitions sur lambitus sont parfaites entre le do grave du violoncelle et lut ultime du violon, en passant par le second violon et le bienheureux alto. De là extrême confort du compositeur, libéré du handicap des deux mains au piano ou des innombrables pièges des jeux de cache cache à lorchestre. Là, tout est clair, chaque note est entendue et la virtuosité est lenfant de Bohême dont rêve limpétrant.
Cest pourquoi je me pose souvent le question des multiples et inutiles séductions ajoutées à la musique, depuis le piano jusquà lorchestres « gurreliederien », il existe, je le sais, le pur raffinement de la beauté « quartetisante ». Alors pourquoi hésiter ?
Parce quil est difficil dimaginer un audimat que satisfasse un éditeur, même passionné de quatuor, marié à un compositeur fécond seulement dans ce domaine. La carrière internationale et triomphante de Georges Onslow est là pous nous le rappeler. (Nata : Onslow est lauteur de 35 quatuors et 34 quintettes dans la continuité rare et appréciable de Schubert.)
Finalement je conclus, à titre personnel, que le quatuor à cordes simpose sans discussion possible au moment où la nostalgie du pays perdue ou égaré sempare de moi et que remonter à la surface, aborder les plages aux franges de lexistence, ne peut se faire quà la condition « quartettane ».
René Koering")
![Billy Jim Layton, String Quartet in Two Movements, Second Movement [1 of 2 total]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kuyEIDaKL8Y/mqdefault.jpg "Billy Jim Layton, String Quartet in Two Movements, Second Movement [1 of 2 total]
ABOUT the String Quartet in Two Movements, composer Billy Jim Layton has this to say: The
quartet was written during 1955 and early 1956 while I was at the American Academy in Rome as a
Rome Prize Fellow. It is a composition to which I devoted a great deal of thought and effort and, as
I look back on it, it seems to me that it represents a kind of summation of my artistic development
and convictions up to that point. In it my aim was to achieve the widest range of expression possible
without lapsing into incoherence, by always maintaining the strongest formal control.
The thought and effort expended by Layton on this work has resulted in a Quartet which holds
qualities of extraversion and introversion in an unusual balance, with areas of high emotional
tension and vigor being set off against other statements of the utmost passivity and inwardness,
sometimes almost expressionist in esthetic. A highly complex treatment of rhythmic resources is
always in evidence, whether the music flows along with an ethereal line singing above a lightly
punctuated counterpoint, or steps out in jazzy, muscular syncops. Indeed, rhythm would seem to
be the real heart of this Quartet. In more than one section, it constitutes the entire subject under
discussion. Instrumental color, however, is another string preoccupation of the composer. The
resources of his medium are constantly exploited to the full, bringing into combination writing con
sordino and senza sordino; non vibrato and molto vibrato; col legno plus high and low pizzicato.
There are even trills beginning as whole-step intervals and gradually contracting to quarter-tones.
Every measure of the score bespeaks meticulous handling of all materials; a high consciousness of
the potency of timbre, and a delight in its manipulation.
about the composer:
Billy Jim Layton was born in Corsicana, Texas, in 1924. He studied at the New England
Conservatory of Music in Boston, Yale University, and Harvard. Several scholarships and prizes
were awarded him by these institutions. He has also held the Hertz Travelling Fellowship from the
University of California and the Rome Prize, 1954-57. In 1958, a grant in recognition of creative
work in music was awarded him by the National Institute of Arts and Letters, in connection with
which the present recording is issued. He has received several important commissions, including
one by the Koussevitsky Foundation. Performances of his music for solo, chamber, orchestral, and
choral combinations have been given in many cities of the United States and Europe.
Claremont St ring Quartet
Marc Gottli eb, violin
Vladimi r Weisman, violin
William Schoen, viola
Irving Klein, cello
We apologize must humbly, profusely, and in a virtual paroxysm of self-deprecation, for the poor sound quality of this 1950s thirty-three-and-one-third revolutions per minute micro-groove recording.")
