On Space the Ensemble KNM Berlin records three chamber works by Marco Stroppa, all in first recordings: a string quartet, a homage to György Kurtág for clarinet, viola and piano, and a piano trio drawn from Joseph Brodsky. Each piece treats the room as part of the music, with sounds at the edge of audibility and players who move or seem to move in space.

Stroppa was born in Verona on 8 December 1959. After studies at the conservatories of Verona, Milan and Venice and at the MIT Media Laboratory, he worked at IRCAM in Paris from 1982, directing its music research department from 1987 to 1990. In 1999 he succeeded Helmut Lachenmann as professor of composition and computer music at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart. KNM Berlin was founded in 1988 by students of the Hanns Eisler music school in East Berlin. The players here include Horia Dumitrache (clarinet), Kirstin-Maria Pientka (viola) and Frank Gutschmidt (piano), with others in the quartet and trio. The disc is a production of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln.

Un segno nello spazio, for string quartet, was commissioned by the theatre of Reggio Emilia for the Paolo Borciani competition. It follows a sign in space through an intense increase of density until the three dimensions of the room become palpable. The seven miniatures of Hommage à Gy. K. (1997-2003, revised 2008) honour György Kurtág. The performers change places on stage several times, and careful microphone placement and mastering let the listener follow these moves by ear alone. In Osja, seven strophes for a literary drone for violin, cello and piano (2005, revised 2013), Stroppa reflects on the life of the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky through two of his poems.

Stroppa sees composition as research and is aware of what he calls the double nature of artistic thought, "the discourse about the thought and the thought itself". For him every sonority is an instrument of knowledge, but the pieces also tell stories through tactile and constantly changing sounds, leaving interpretation to the listener. The Hungarian link has a history: in 1987 he founded a workshop of composition and computer music at the International Bartók Seminar in Szombathely and led it for thirteen years, meeting Hungarian musicians and poets.

CD, Wergo WER 7372 2, released in 2018, a production of Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln.