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 did research in Vienna on Joseph Haydn, a composer on whom he would become a noted expert. His book Symphonies of Joseph Haydn was published in 1955, with the five volume Haydn: Chronicle and Works following at the end of the 1970s. He also edited a number of Haydn's works.
Robbins Landon has published work on other 18th century composers, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Antonio Vivaldi.