[1][2] His parents were of German and Scottish ancestry, his father's grandfather, Joachim Heinrich Gottfried Langbein, having arrived in South Australia from Mecklenburg in 1845.
[2][3][4] He began learning violin at age five with the teaching sisters of the Good Samaritan Convent, Gawler,[5] and when he was eight years old, he gave his first public recital at Tanunda Town Hall.
He studied violin at the Elder Conservatorium of Music under Sylvia Whitington and at age nine won a Eugene Alderman Scholarship for a further three years' tuition[6] at the Conservatorium, where he was taught by Ludwig Schwab, and began to perform with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at age fourteen.
He died of cancer in Zürich on 6 June of that year, aged 65, and is buried in the Barossa Valley town of Lyndoch.
[18] Hans Werner Henze wrote a solo viola composition, An Brenton, as a tribute to Langbein shortly after his death.