H. C. Robbins Landon

Howard Chandler Robbins Landon (March 6, 1926 – November 20, 2009^[1]) was an American musicologist.

He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and studied music at Swarthmore College and Boston University. He subsequently moved to Europe where he worked as a music critic. From 1947 he undertook research in Vienna on Joseph Haydn, a composer on whom he became an authority. His book Symphonies of Joseph Haydn was published in 1955, and the five volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works followed at the end of the 1970s. He also edited a number of Haydn's works.

Robbins Landon published work on other 18th century composers, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonio Vivaldi. He coined the term barococo.

In 1994 a controversy erupted over the appearance of various piano sonatas which Robbins Landon at first declared to be newly discovered Haydn works, but then concluded were fakes.^[2]

He was married twice: his first wife Christa died in a plane crash in 1977. His second wife Else Radant, whom he was separated from, survives him. He lived in France in the latter years of his life, where he died aged 83 on November 20, 2009^[1] in Rabastens.

References

Writings

This list is incomplete.

• Symphonies of Joseph Haydn (1955)
• Beethoven; a documentary study. Compiled and edited by H.C. Robbins Landon. New York: Macmillan. 1970. (Translation of Beethoven; sein Leben und seine Welt in zeitgenössischen Bildern und Texten Zurich: Universal Edition, 1970.)
• Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976-1980. (Also London: Thames and Hudson.) v. 3 has ISBN 0-500-01164-8.
• Haydn: A Documentary Study. New York: Rizzoli, 1981. ISBN 0-8478-0388-0.
• Mozart and the Masons : new light on the lodge "Crowned hope". New York, N.Y. : Thames and Hudson, 1983, c1982. ISBN 0-500-55014-X.
• Handel and his World. (First American Edition.) Boston: Little, Brown. 1984. ISBN 0-316-51360-1.
• 1791: Mozart's Last Year. London and New York, N.Y. : Thames and Hudson, 1988, 1999. ISBN 0-500-28107-6 (1999 edition).
• With Wyn Jones, David: Haydn, His Life and Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 1988. ISBN 0-253-37265-8.
• Mozart, the golden years, 1781-1791. New York: Schirmer Books, 1989. ISBN 0-02-872025-3.
• Mozart and Vienna. First American Edition: New York : Schirmer Books : Maxwell Macmillan International, 1991. ISBN 0-02-871317-6.
• Vivaldi: Voice of the Baroque. London: Thames & Hudson, 1993. ISBN 0-500-01576-7.

External links

• An Interview with H. C. Robbins Landon, Early Music World, 2007
• HC Robbins Landon - Daily Telegraph obituary