Sadie worked as a critic and reviewer throughout his life. His earliest reviews began whilst still a student at Cambridge with contributions to Cambridge Review and Record News. From the late 1950s he was writing for a range of periodicals and in 1964 joined The Times as a music critic, reviewing regularly for the paper until 1981. He became a music critic for the recordings magazine Gramophone in 1965, continuing to submit reviews until the early 2000s.
Contains press cuttings books, tear sheets and press cuttings of published reviews, typescripts of reviews submitted for publication, galley proofs.