Karl Erb - Later Career

Later Career

Erb continued to sing the Matthew Passion Evangelist yearly at Amsterdam for Willem Mengelberg, and in the course of thirty years sang it some 360 times, in most major German town and cities, and in Zürich, Berne, Basel, Lucerne, Solothurn, Lausanne, Milan and Brussels, under Bruno Walter, William Mengelberg, Hermann Suter, Fritz Busch, Hermann Abendroth, Alfred Sittard, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Karl Straube and Eugen Papst. With the passage of decades his interpretation grew and was increasingly called authoritative. He sang it throughout the second war, and after, in Germany: a 1940 reviewer described his Cologne cathedral performance as an 'unfassbaren, übermenschlichen, unirdisch wirklichen Vollendung' (an inconceivable, more-than-human, supernally real perfection).

When Erb left the stage his career was just entering its last great development, which was as one of the most serious and accomplished lieder singers of his age. Between 1935 and 1940 he made an impressive series of records (HMV) of Schubert, Schumann, Brahms and Wolf songs, accompanied by Sebastian Peschko, Bruno Seidler-Winkler or Gerald Moore. The many strands of his singing experience, the thoughtfulness of his Pfitzner, Wolf and Schreker, the musical discipline of his Bach and his Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Weber and lyric Wagner roles, had laid the foundations for this last work, in which he excelled. His vocal technique, breath control and distinctive tone survived almost unchanged into his mid-seventies. Hans Hotter, who held Erb in high esteem, said that 'it was Paul Bender and Karl Erb who sparked my great love for the art song.'

In 1947, aged 70, he gave a concert for his mother's 90th birthday in his home church at Ravensburg. He died in Ravensburg in 1958.