During her initial years at the University of Halle, Landau was torn between the primary study of musicology or the history of fine arts. But her professor of fine arts, Paul Frankl, after three semesters in the philosophy department, insisted she choose her field. Though she had great respect for Frankl, who was renowned for his work in Gothic architecture, she finally picked music. He was not surprised: “This is the right decision: you don't paint.” Stating the obvious, he continued, “You have great interest and understanding for architecture, but you don't build with stones.” Rather, he observed, “You build with notes, with sound … this is your life, this is your field.” She became in this way one of the earliest women to pursue a degree in musicology. She followed Elsa Blumenfeld, the first-known female musicologist, who obtained her doctorate degree in Vienna in 1903; Bertha Antonia Wallner, who earned her degree at Munich University in 1910; and Kathi Meyer-Baer, who completed hers at Leipzig University in 1916. Theirs was a short list that was slowly growing.

Landau maintained her working relationship with Frankl and impressed her professor of aesthetics, Emil Utitz, a German Jewish critic and philosopher of culture. She also studied with musicologist Hermann Abert (who wrote a classic Mozart biography) at the Berlin University (now Humboldt University) for two semesters in the fall of 1925 and spring of 1926. In October 1926 she returned to her studies in Halle, for Schering, her main professor, was there. When Abert died in 1927, Schering took his post in Berlin and Landau followed, officially relocating to the German capital in August 1927.

Landau's move, away from the family home, hastened her shift toward independence as a single woman. She would not go from her parents’ home to her husband's, like so many other young ladies at the time. She would begin to carve out her own niche in the world. The effort would be tremendous— an effort complicated by anti-Semitism as well as the general struggle women faced in all academic fields at the time. It didn't help that the university would not have had in place for Landau a system of support.