Mark the Words: Early Music’s Representation in Writing

Abstract

This paper argues for the interpretation of the words on Basel BS 415 as the markers not only of the song’s content, but equally of its musical notation. Predating such notation, the inscribed syllables reflect language’s priority over music, as opposed to the later reversal of these priorities. On Basel BS 415, written words’ orthography sufficed as an indication of the syllables’ prosodic qualities that enabled musical accompaniment to follow the lead of verbal rhythm and melody. As later reform likely championed the opposite, orthography gradually gave way to specialised musical signs and notation to account for the music that was to be the frame within which sung language was to be fitted. Basel BS 415, I will argue, conforms to the practice of representing song through sung words as evidenced in metrical inscriptions of the archaic period.