Nicholas Gatty

Who was Nicholas Gatty?

Nicholas Comyn Gatty was an English composer and music critic. As a composer his major output was opera, which was generally musically undistinguished but well-presented theatrically. As a critic he worked for the Pall Mall Gazette and The Times, and served as assistant editor for the second and third editions of Grove.

He was born in Bradfield, Yorkshire, the second son of the Revd Reginald Gatty. He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge and studied under Charles Villiers Stanford at the Royal College of Music. At the beginning of the 20th Century he was assistant conductor at Covent Garden and at some time organist to the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Chelsea.

Gatty was a close contemporary and friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams and from around 1900 the latter was to spend summer holidays with the Gattys at Hooton Roberts, between Rotherham and Doncaster, where Gatty's father was Rector. He died in London.

He was the nephew of Alfred Scott-Gatty.