Musical Games For String Quartet - Quarter-Tone Abstracts

Released in 1972 on the Italian Vedette label, Fabio Fabor’s Musical Games for String Quartet - Quarter-Tone Abstracts represents the experimental, often esoteric side of European library music. During this era, library music labels like Vedette commissioned composers to produce works that could serve as atmospheric soundtracks for film, television, and radio production. Fabor, a prolific composer known for his versatility, utilized the string quartet format here to explore microtonal textures and avant-garde compositional structures that pushed the boundaries of standard commercial background music.

The album reflects the era's fascination with structural experimentation and the influence of contemporary classical techniques on incidental music. Fabor sought to bridge the gap between academic formalist exploration and the requirements of the production library market, which demanded evocative, mood-driven compositions. The release is noted by collectors of Italian library music for its unconventional tonal palette and its departure from the more melodic pop or jazz-influenced cues that typically defined the label's output at the time.