The history of the development of Messiah from initial composition to Handel's last active performances has to be reconstructed from an interpretation of surviving materials of various sorts, such as musical manuscripts, printed libretti, letters and newspaper reports. The outline offered presents the author's conclusions, with only passing references to the complex interaction of information from the sources that lie behind them. However, it is impossible to frame any coherent history of the development of Handel's Messiah without some reference to the most important sources.

The composition autograph

This manuscript contains principally the autograph score composed, according to the dates that Handel himself added, between 22 August and 14 September 1741. Of the preliminary sketching process that may have preceded this autograph, only a single page survives (now in the collection of Handel's manuscript material at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge): it comprises jottings for the ‘Amen’ chorus, ‘He was despised’ and ‘Let all the angels of God’, the latter with an alternative text suggesting that Handel considered trying the same theme for ‘and cast away their yokes from us’ in ‘Let us break their bonds’. Although other works from which Handel drew music – such as the Italian Duets – may be regarded as sources for Messiah, they cannot be regarded as composition sketches.