Very little is known about Aron's early life but at least one source claims he may have been Jewish. He was educated in Italy. Aron was a self-taught musician. He claimed in his
Toscanello in musica (1523) that he had been friends with
Obrecht,
Josquin, and
Heinrich Isaac in
Florence. If true, the time frame would have been most likely in 1487. Between 1515 and 1522, he was
Church Cantor at the
Cathedral of
Imola. In 1516 he became a
priest there. In February 1523 Aron went to
Venice and became cantor of
Rimini Cathedral, where he worked for
Sebastiano Michiel, who was Grand Prior of the
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. In 1525, he was "maestro di casa" in a
Venetian house. In 1536, after the death of Michiel, he joined a
monastery in Bergamo where he remained until his death. Aron is known for his treatises on the
contrapuntal practice of the period. His earliest treatise,
De institutione harmonica, on counterpoint, is written in Italian even though most scholarly writings of the time are in
Latin. In
Thoscanello de la musica (later
Toscanello in 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. Aron included tables of four-voice chords, the beginning of the trend which was to result in
functional tonality in the early 17th century. He also discusses
tuning, and the book is the first to describe
quarter-comma meantone. Other topics covered by Aron include the use of the eight
modes, four-voice
cadences, and notation of
accidentals. Aron was a friend and frequent correspondent of music theorist
Giovanni Spataro. Only Spataro's letters to Aron have survived. Topics discussed by the two include contemporary composers and composition, notation, and especially the use of accidentals. While Aron was known as a composer and frequently refers to his own works in his writings, only one possible composition of his survives, the doubtfully attributed four-voice
frottola, "Io non posso piu durare", from
Petrucci's Fifth Book of Frottole (1505). Lost works include a Credo setting in six voices, a five-voice Mass, settings of
In illo tempore loquente Jesu,
Letatus sum, and
Da pacem, and other motets and madrigals. ==Published works==