German musicologist, editor, and conductor.

Career Summary

Landshoff studied composition with Heinrich Urban, musicology with Max Friedlander and Oskar Fleischer at Berlin University, and Adolf Sandberger at Munich University. Thereafter, he served as opera conductor at the theaters in Aachen (1902–04), Kiel (1912–13), Breslau (1913–15), and Würzburg (1915–20), and music director of the Munich Bachverein (1918–28), moving to Berlin in 1928, then to Italy in 1936, Paris in 1938, and New York in 1941, where he spent the last few months of his life.

He is best known for his research into vocal music of the 17th and 18th centuries. He produced the five-volume series Alte Meister des Bel Canto, and also edited instrumental music by C. P. E Bach, J. S. Bach, J. C. Bach, and others. He prepared scrupulous Urtext editions of works, including the two- and three-part inventions and Musical Offering of J. S. Bach, published by C. F. Peters, both with extensive critical commentaries, and produced similar editions of the English Suites and the Well-tempered Clavier that were in production in 1939 but never published. Late in his career, he did much research into the music of Vivaldi.

Landshoff and Schenker

The two men probably never met. From 1934, one letter from Schenker survives thanking Landshoff for sending his edition of the two- and three-part inventions (Kassler 1). Landshoff is also mentioned in correspondence between Schenker and Oswald Jonas: OJ 12/6, [26], December 10, 1933, OJ 5/18, 34, January 16, 1934, and OC 44/21, September 18, 1934.

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