In the evening at court the Elector again spoke in high praise of the music, and Mozart learnt from a sure source that he had said after the rehearsal, "I was quite taken by surprise--no music ever had such an effect on me--it is truly magnificent." The news of this success reached Salzburg bit by bit. "All the town is talking of the excellence of your opera," his father tells him (December 25, 1780). "Baron Lerbach set it going; the chancellor s wife told me that she had heard from him that the opera was wonderfully well spoken of everywhere. Then came Becke's letter to Fiala, which he gave to be read everywhere." Becke wrote to L. Mozart himself that "the storm chorus in the second act is so powerful that none could hear it, even in the greatest heat of summer, without turning as cold as ice;" and he praises Dorothea Wendling's concerted song very much. The violinist Esser from Mayence, who had given concerts in Salzburg, wrote from Augsburg concerning the two acts of the opera which he had heard: "Che abbia sentito una musica ottima e particolare, universalmente applaudita." "In short," writes the father, "it would be tedious to tell you all the compliments paid to you. I hope that the third act will have as good an effect, and I do so the more confidently, since all the best situations are here, and the subterranean voices must be startling and terrifying.[7] I hope to be able to say, 'Finis coronat opus.'" {REHEARSALS.} (139) To this his son answers, over head and ears in work (December 30, 1780): "The third act will be thought _at least_ as good as the other two: I like it infinitely better, and you may justly say, 'Finis coronat opus.'" But there was plenty to do meantime. "Head and hands," he writes (January 3,1781), "are full of the third act, so that I should not be surprised if I were to turn into a third act myself; It alone has cost me more trouble than the whole opera, for there is not a scene in it that has not peculiar interest." He had the satisfaction of finding after the rehearsal that it really was considered to surpass the other two acts. Mozart's anxious father strove to draw his attention to every point that might contribute to success, and particularly cautioned him to keep on good terms with the orchestra (December 25, 1780). Experience of Salzburg must necessarily have shown him the importance of this:--