C.P.E. Bach and the art of strange modulation

C.P.E. Bach's improvisational practice led him to conceive of modulation as an expressive device that is largely of local significance. This conceptio n is at odds with the views of his contemporaries, who explain modulation a s a means of generating musical form. In the present article I explicate Ba ch's obscure and fragmentary writings on the subject by reading them agains t the more systematic treatises of Kirnberger and Koch. I then use his idea s to help explain his compositional practice by analyzing several of the ex amples that he cites from his own music.