Sadie then turned to music journalism, becoming music critic for The Times (1964–1981), and contributing reviews to the Financial Times after 1981, when he had to leave his position and The Times because of his commitments to the Grove and other scholarly work. He was editor of The Musical Times from 1967 until 1987.[13][14][15]
From 1970, Sadie was editor of what was planned to be the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980). Sadie oversaw major changes to the dictionary, which grew from nine volumes to twenty, and was published as The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (New Grove), and is now referred to as the first edition under that name. He was also an important force behind the second edition of New Grove (2001), which grew further to 29 volumes. Sadie also oversaw a major expansion of the Grove franchise, editing the one-volume Grove Concise Dictionary of Music (1988), and several spinoff dictionaries, such as the New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments (three volumes, 1984), the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, (with H. Wiley Hitchcock, four volumes, 1986), and The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (four volumes, 1992). He also edited composer biographies based on the entries in Grove.[16][17]
Outside his work on the Grove dictionaries, Sadie edited the Man and Music volumes accompanying a television series (1989–1993).[18] He was also an accomplished bassoonist.[19][20][21][22]
Sadie died at his home in Cossington, Somerset, on 21 March 2005, of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Motor Neurone disease), which had been diagnosed only a few weeks earlier.
Sadie married twice. His first wife, Adèle Sadie (née Bloom; 1931–1978) – whom he married in 1953 in London, and with whom he had two sons and a daughter – died in 1978. Sadie married Julie Anne Sadie (née Vertrees; born 1948), also a musicologist, in 1978. They had a son and a daughter.
^Biography Index, H. W. Wilson Company; ISSN 0006-3053 Vol. 12: September 1979 – August 1982 (1983) Vol. 30: September 2004 – August 2005 (2005) Vol. 31 September 2005 – August 2006 (2006)
^Whittall, Arnold (22 April 2009). "Nigel Fortune: Musicologist behind a rise in academic standards in Britain". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 October 2022.
^The International Authors and Writers Who's Who, Adrian Gaster (1919–1989) (ed), Cambridge, England: International Biographical Centre; ISSN 0143-8263 8th ed. (1977) 9th ed. (1982) 10th ed. (1986) 12th ed. (1991) 11th ed. (1989) 13th ed. 1993– 94 (1993)
^International Who's Who in Music and Musicians' Directory (in the Classical and Light Classical fields), Adrian Gaster (1919–1989), Cambridge, England: International Who's Who in Music; ISSN 0307-2894 6th ed. (1972); OCLC 9991844 9th ed. (1980); OCLC 7519641 12th ed. 1990–1991 (1990); OCLC 28065697 17th ed. 2000–2001 (2000); OCLC 610394664
^Latham, Alison. "Sadie, Stanley". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/96225. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.); OCLC 4916054867