H. C. Robbins Landon
Howard Chandler Robbins Landon (March 6, 1926 – November 20, 2009) was an American musicologist, journalist, historian and broadcaster, best known for his work in rediscovering the huge body of neglected music by Haydn and in correcting misunderstandings about Mozart.
He rescued, published critical editions of, wrote books about, and with the society arranged for the recording of, numerous forgotten works.
He was a popular broadcaster for the BBC on radio and television and was praised for his ability to enthuse general audiences with his chosen subject.
I asked him why and he told me that forty years ago the German publisher Breitkopf and Härtel started to collect all Haydn's works, but got bogged down.
[7] From 1943 to 1945 he was a student at Swarthmore College, studying music theory with Alfred Swan, composition with Harl McDonald and English literature with W. H.
[6] From 1945 to 1947 Landon was at Boston University, studying music with Hugo Norton and Karl Geiringer, who was described by The Times as "the great Haydn scholar".
[6] This move gave him practical experience in handling primary sources and enabled him to remain in Vienna, writing, performing and researching.
[9] In 1949 Landon married the harpsichordist and scholar Christa Fuhrmann,[note 1] completed his military service, and returned to Boston to undertake postgraduate research.
[10] A legacy from an uncle in 1949 enabled him to return to Vienna, where he organized an ambitious program of recording, while continuing to search for forgotten Haydn scores in archives in central Europe.
56; Landon established that Haydn's horns had been designed to play in a range an octave higher, and arranged for replicas to be made.
[3] The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians rates this and Landon's 1955 book on the symphonies as "major landmarks in Haydn studies".
His five books on the life and music of Mozart were aimed at a wider public than his works about Haydn, and sold in large numbers in many languages, making his name internationally known.
[14] In the wake of long-standing myths about Mozart, and new perceptions of him created by the 1979 play and 1984 film Amadeus, Landon set out the facts.
[10] When venturing outside his sphere of special expertise he was sometimes criticized for lacking scholarly precision; Grove instances his books on Vivaldi, J. C. Bach and Beethoven.
Having made his home at various times in his career in Austria, Italy and Britain, Landon settled in 1984 at the Château de Foncoussières, Rabastens, Tarn, in southern France.
[10] In 1990 Landon collaborated with the writer and broadcaster John Julius Norwich in presenting a five-part television series about Venice's musical heritage under the title Maestro.
[14] Landon never formally retired, but in an interview he gave two years before his death, he said that he no longer did any research: "I do a few corrections, that kind of thing.
However, he faults Landon for haphazard scholarship and analysis, observing that "much of what he writes is sensitive and penetrating, and it is all informed by a great love of Haydn and an enthusiasm which would be infectious if the book were not so disorganized and unsystematic.
[21] He received the Verdienstkreuz für Kunst und Wissenschaft from the Austrian Government in 1972 and the Gold Medal of the City of Vienna in 1987.
[14] Landon's output was huge; a tribute volume published for his 70th birthday in 1996 contained a bibliography listing 516 publications by him, including 28 books.
