Nicholas Comyn Gatty (13 September 1874 – 10 November 1946) was an English composer and music critic. As a composer his major output was opera, which was generally regarded as 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, and the nephew of composer Alfred Scott-Gatty.[1] He was educated at Downing College, Cambridge (BA 1896, Mus B 1898, Mus D 1927) and at the Royal College of Music where he studied under Charles Villiers Stanford. From 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. At Grove's Dictionary of Music he wrote many anonymous contributions under the editors Fuller Maitland and H C Colles.[2]
His compositions include the operas Prince Ferelon (1919) written to his own libretto, which was published as part of the Carnegie Collection of British Music[3] and was staged at the Old Vic in 1921, and The Tempest, (composed in 1914, with a libretto adapted by his brother René (Reginald Arthur Allix Gatty) which followed at the Old Vic in 1922.[4] Edward Dent found in The Tempest "a wonderful Purcellian beauty".[5] Gatty's orchestral Concert Allegro for piano and orchestra was premiered at the Proms on 6 October 1903[6] and his ambitious choral and orchestral work Fly, envious time (setting Milton's "Ode on Time") was commissioned for the 1905 Sheffield Festival.[7][8]The Shropshire Songbook, folksong arrangements made by Gatty and Alan Gray, was published in 1922.[9]
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.[10] He died in London, aged 72.
The Nicolas Gatty archive is held at the University of Exeter.[11]
^"People of Note: About The Gatty Family of Ecclesfield and Hooton Roberts". Archived from the original on 22 July 2012. Retrieved 13 July 2012., which shows that Alfred was Reginald's brother.
^Obituary, Manchester Guardian, 14 November 1946, p 3
^Carnegie Collection of British Music
^The Times, 28 April 1922, p 12
^Cary, Hugh. Duet for Two Voices: An Informal Biography of Edward Dent (CUP, 1979)
^BBC Proms performance archive
^Manchester Guardian, 22 June 1905, p 12
^Musical Times No 752 (October 1905) p 668
^The Shropshire Songbook, IMSLP
^Vaughan Williams, Ursula. R.V.W: a biography of Ralph Vaughan Williams (OUP, 1964).
Nicholas Comyn Gatty (13 September 1874 – 10 November 1946) was an English composer and music critic. As a composer his major output was opera, which was...
naturalist NicholasGatty (1874–1946), English composer and music critic Gatty Marine Laboratory This page lists people with the surname Gatty. If an internal...
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Society. The Shropshire Songbook, a book of arrangements made by Gray and NicholasGatty from folksongs collected by W H Leslie, was published in 1922. Gray...
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Villiers Stanford‘s Nonet at the Aeolian Hall in London. 1 March - NicholasGatty‘s one-act opera Greysteel has its premiere in Sheffield during the University...
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begins service (as Boeing Air Transport). 1931 – Wiley Post and Harold Gatty become the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a single-engined...
4 July 1829. Retrieved 19 August 2017 – via British Newspaper Archive. Gatty, Mrs. Alfred (1900). The Book of Sun-dials. George Bell & Sons. p. 25. Curry...
officer of German birth (born Wolfgang von Blumenthal) working for Richard Gatty in Belgium and later transferred to the Norwegian/Swedish border, voiced...
1859–1870 Sir William Henry Weldon, KCVO, FSA 1870–1880 Sir Alfred Scott Scott-Gatty, KCVO, KJStJ, FSA 1880–1886 Sir Albert William Woods, GCVO, KCB, KCMG, KGStJ...
Ludlow, 1874 to 1886 Stephen Herbert Gatty, 1886 to 1889 Trinidad united with Tobago, 1889 Stephen Herbert Gatty, 1889 to ?1892 George Lewis Garcia, 1892...
biopolymers Wiktor Kemula Włodzimierz Kołos Stanisław Kostanecki Marek Gatty-Kostyal Józef R. Lewandowski Ignacy Łukasiewicz, inventor of kerosene lamp...
Émile Gaboriau, French crime novelist (born 1832) October 4 – Margaret Gatty, English children's author (born 1809) November 6 – Manuel Bretón de los...
water navigation task was developed by Richard Morris at the university's Gatty Marine Laboratory. Anthropology Paloma Gay y Blasco Peter Gow Ladislav Holý...
Frankcom, artistic director of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester Alfred Gatty, Church of England priest and author Robert Murray Gilchrist, novelist Dave...
Marine Station (today Scottish Association for Marine Science, 1884), the Gatty Marine Laboratory (University of St Andrews, 1884), the Marine Biological...
of the Community of the Resurrection, Bishop of Truro, 1923–1935 Alfred Gatty (1813–1903), clergyman and writer Edgar Gibson (1848–1924), Bishop of Gloucester...