A portrait of a Tyrolean

70 years at the organ: no mass without Moidi

Moidi at her beloved organ.(Bild: Toni Silberberger)

83-year-old Maria Leiter is a mountain farmer and organist in Thierbach/Wildschönau and has never been absent on Christmas Eve. Despite many strokes of fate, the Tyrolean has always kept her courage to face life.

"I'm not a celebrity. And don't write anything exaggerated about me," warns the Unterländer native in all modesty.

The death of her father and sisters
Maria Leiter was born in 1941 during the war. Her father was killed at the front and her two sisters did not survive infancy. You can imagine what a simple life she led with her mother Rosina in the "Sollererhäusl".

The teacher's question
When Moidi was twelve years old, she asked "Sister Augusta", the local teacher, if she wanted to learn to play the organ. "On April 9, 1956, I played for the first time at a wedding," she recalls. She wasn't nervous, not even later.

Thierbach, the smallest parish in the district. Behind the church tower on the right is Moidi's Sollererhäusel.(Bild: Toni Silberberger)

Christmas as a church service marathon
And so it was that Maria sat at the organ in the small parish church for decades. Christmas days used to be a real marathon. "There was the Angel's Office at 6 a.m., Vespers in the afternoon and Matins at midnight," says the 83-year-old.

Does this make her the oldest organist in the country? Moidi doesn't know herself, but thinks very little of such superlatives.

Only one Christmas wish
On Christmas Eve at 9.30 pm, she sits at the organ once again. The Kyrie and Sanctus are part of her fixed repertoire. But she leaves the "Silent Night" to a young musician colleague. Moidi's only Christmas wish: for her aching knees to get a little better.