From its outset, this performance-based project’s goal has always been to develop imaginative reworkings of the rich repertoire of The Mulliner Book. It has never been the goal of the project to uncover new musicological insights into the pieces contained within the manuscript. Many other academics have already spent much time studying this aspect of The Mulliner Book. Likewise, it has never been the goal of this project to produce a purely historical inspired reproduction of this music.

I believe that the recordings which have been produced throughout this project have been overwhelmingly successful in creating imaginative reworkings of this repertoire. Of course, not all the recordings on were successful, such as: Of wyse heads (organ), When grypinge griefes (chamber organ), and The man is bleste (chamber organ) to name just a few. Likewise, not all experiments with tempi and phrasing produced completely convincing results. However, the recordings made as a result of these experiments are still valuable; they did result in the formation of ideas which influenced the production of other successful reworkings of pieces from The Mulliner Book.

For me, the biggest surprise of this project was the use of “non-standard” registration schemes in Enforced by love and fear (basse de trompette) and Ffonde youthe is a bubble (organ solo stop), and The man is bleste (organ solo stop). These recordings were truly unique interpretations of these pieces which were real triumphs of The Mulliner Project. While they may not be historically accurate (as the organs of the time did not have these stops) these continentally inspired registrations brought these pieces to life in a completely new way.

Similarly, the exploration of the character implications (and the subverting of the character) of various pieces, and the complete change of performance space (performing sacred music on the harpsichord and spinet in a private setting) produced beautiful new renditions of these pieces. This was particularly the case in the recordings of Clarifica me pater I (spinet), Clarifica me pater II (harpsichord), and Ffonde youthe is a bubble (spinet). In the future, further recordings exploring the thwarting of expected performative space and character should be explored. Such recordings would, no doubt, produce some very interesting performances.

Finally, the exploration of improvisation and the repeating of material produced mixed results. I felt that recordings, such as My frindes (organ), and Clarifica me pater III (spinet) were very successful. The reworkings produced deeply interesting and emotional responses to the original score. However, other recordings such as When grypinge griefes (chamber organ) were less successful. This was perhaps just due to a one-off poor improvisation, or because this particular piece simply did not lend itself well to improvisation. Likewise, I felt that in of wyse heads (organ) the addition of repeats became far too repetitive. A further exploration of these techniques in other repertoire from The Mulliner Book will no doubt prove whether these techniques are appropriate methods of reworking this kind of repertoire.