Pietro Aron
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Pietro Aron (also Pietro Aaron), c. 1480 – c. 1550, was an Italian music theorist and composer. He was born in Florence and probably died in Bergamo.
He was cantor at the cathedral of Imola between 1515 and 1522, but little is known of his life before that except that he was educated in Italy. Later he went to Venice, and after a period of employment there he joined a monastery at Bergamo where he remained until the end of his life; at least one publication dates from this time.
Aron's significance mainly derives from his treatises on the contrapuntal practice of the period. His earliest treatise, De institutione harmonica, is on counterpoint, and interestingly is written in Italian: most scholarly writings of the time are in Latin, but Aron preferred the vernacular. In Toscanello de la musica he was the first to observe the change from linear writing to vertical: this was the first period in music history where composers began to become conscious of chords and the flow of harmony, and Aron includes tables of four-voice chords, the beginning of the trend which was to result in functional tonality in the early 17th century. Other topics covered by Aron include the use of the eight modes, four-voice cadences, notation of accidentals, and tuning, which was a difficult and contentious topic prior to the acceptance of equal temperament.
While he was known as a composer and frequently refers to his own works in his writings, only one composition of his survives.