Pietro Aron facts for kids

Pietro Aron, also known as Pietro (or Piero) Aaron (around 1480 – after 1545), was an Italian music theorist and composer. He was born in Florence and likely died in Bergamo. He is famous for his books about music theory, especially how music was written and understood in his time.

Pietro Aron's Life Story

Not much is known about Pietro Aron's early life. He studied in Italy and learned music on his own. Pietro Aron said in one of his books, Toscanello in musica (published in 1523), that he was friends with famous composers like Obrecht, Josquin, and Heinrich Isaac when he was in Florence. This would have been around 1487.

From 1515 to 1522, he worked as a Church Cantor (a leader of church music) at the main church in Imola. In 1516, he also became a priest there. In 1523, Pietro Aron moved to Venice. He then became the cantor at Rimini Cathedral. He worked for Sebastiano Michiel, who was a leader of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1525, he was a "maestro di casa" (like a house manager) in a Venetian home. After Michiel died in 1536, Pietro Aron joined a monastery in Bergamo. He stayed there until he died.

Aron's Ideas on Music

Pietro Aron is well-known for his books about counterpoint. Counterpoint is a way of writing music where different melodies play at the same time. His first book, De institutione harmonica, was written in Italian. This was unusual because most scholarly books at that time were written in Latin.

In his book Thoscanello de la musica (later called Toscanello in musica), he was the first to notice a big change in music. Composers started to think about chords (groups of notes played together) and how they flowed. This was a new idea! Aron even included tables of four-voice chords. This was the start of how music would be understood for centuries. He also wrote about tuning instruments. His book was the first to describe a tuning system called "quarter-comma meantone." Aron also discussed how to use the eight modes (different types of scales). He wrote about four-voice cadences (musical endings) and how to write accidentals (sharps or flats) in music.

Pietro Aron was good friends with another music theorist named Giovanni Spataro. They often wrote letters to each other. Only Spataro's letters to Aron have survived. They talked about composers, how to write music, and especially how to use accidentals.

Aron's Compositions

Pietro Aron was known as a composer. He often mentioned his own musical pieces in his writings. However, only one piece of music that might be his still exists. It is a four-voice song called "Io non posso piu durare." This song was published in 1505. Many of his other works are now lost. These include a six-voice Credo (a church song), a five-voice Mass, and other motets and madrigals.

Pietro Aron's Published Books

• Libri tres de institutione harmonica (Bologna, 1516)
• Thoscanello de la musica (Venice, 1523; reprinted four times as Toscanello in musica between 1525 and 1562)
• Trattato della natura et cognitione di tutti gli tuoni di canto figurato (Venice, 1525)
• Lucidario in musica di alcune opinione antiche e moderne (Venice, 1545)
• Compendiolo di molti dubbi, segreti, et sentenze intorno al canto fermo et figurato (Milan, no date, likely published after his death)

See also

In Spanish: Pietro Aaron para niños