A specialist in the music of Greek-French composer Xenakis (1992-2001), Gibson (music analysis, U. of Évora, Portugal) looks at his instrumental music first from the perspective of his compositional procedures, emphasizing how he incorporated pre-existing material into a new composition. Then he turns to some of the main theories or compositional principles the composer put forth, not in their scientific base, but in their applications within his works. In the final chapter he considers compositional procedures that Xenakis used but never fully theorized: random walks, arborescences relying essentially on graphic means, and cellular automata. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)