"Oh Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion"

I think that "Oh Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" is one of the most interesting pieces in that it has some of the most obvious examples of word painting of all of the movements. The obviousness of the word painting first becomes apparent with the words "up", "high", "mountains" and "arise" because the pitch increases for each of these words. In other words, when these words are sung, the pitch ascends mirroring the meaning of the words, creating this word painting. In one of the analyses that I read it pointed out that the word "mountain" is especially interesting because of the pattern of the instrumentation that follows it, which is made up of an arrangement of 16th notes that are repeated in the instrumental interruptions. In these instances the first three of these notes in the pattern are high, whereas the last three are low, thus creating some form of semblance to the ascending and then descending of a mountain. This may be something of a stretch, but nonetheless it does seem interesting that Handel chooses to use this pattern following the word "mountain."