Reading Aron reading Petrucci: the music examples of the Trattato della natura et cognitione di tutti gli tuoni (1525)

Abstract

It has often been noted that Pietro Aron's Trattato della natura et cognitione di tutti gli tuoni (1525) links traditional eight-mode theory with polyphony by naming actual compositions and asserting the modal categories to which they belonged. The significance of Aron's connection of mode and polyphony has been the subject of a wide variety of historical and theoretical interpretation: in particular, Leeman Perkins based a study of modality in the masses of Josquin on the Trattato, while Peter Bergquist argued that Aron's classifications were essentially irrelevant for polyphony. The most recent interpretation of Aron's text appeared in an article by Harold Powers provocatively entitled ‘Is Mode Real?’ There, Powers proposed understanding Aron literally and deduced Aron's methods of modal categorisation from a close reading relying solely on the internal evidence of the treatise.

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