Born in 1956, Luca Francesconi takes a path away from the timbral concerns of the day, dealing instead with radical ways of telling a story. In the third quartet, subtitled Mirrors, ideas constantly turn about-face or get interrupted by contrasting gestures, stretching his polyphony of musical languages into a single line. Neural Rituals illustrates Francesconi"s interpretation of memory as a non-centralized network, and shows off Irvine Arditti"s ferocious viruosity. Also part of his memory studies, Lures II explores four simultaneous levels of association. Plot in Fiction, for oboe and eleven instruments, maintains a youthful verve by overlapping several melodic processes. --Robert Reigle