Osian Ellis, who has died aged 92, delighted in playing the harp in every available lineup. Among his many fine recordings, his account of Handel’s Harp Concerto directed by Thurston Dart (1959) won a Grand Prix du Disque, and that of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro with the Melos Ensemble (1962) remains a classic. But he was particularly associated with the music of Benjamin Britten.
The composer first heard him in 1959, in a performance of A Ceremony of Carols. When the premiere of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream came at his festival in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the following year, the second harpist baled out, but the day was saved by Osian, who devised a way of playing very nearly all the notes himself.
There was already a harp part in Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw (1954) – Osian played that, and was involved in other premieres from the 1960s, of the War Requiem and the three church parables. These works – Curlew River, The Prodigal Son and The Burning Fiery Furnace – were conductorless, with Osian and his fellow instrumentalists dressed as if monks.
At the end of the decade Britten thanked him with the Harp Suite Op 83 (1969), which appositely contains a reference to the Welsh hymn St Denio. When Osian first tried the piece, he told Britten that one passage was impossible. The latter apologised, but asked if Osian had thought of using this pedal here and that one there. Of course it worked, and Osian became even more in awe of a musician he also respected as a performer: “He was the one conductor who made you play your best – you couldn’t do enough for him. I don’t know another conductor who does that for you.”
Osian also premiered Britten’s Canticle V (1974), with the tenor Peter Pears singing TS Eliot’s The Death of St Narcissus, and A Birthday Hansel (1975), to texts by Robert Burns. Osian also took up the composer’s arrangements of folk songs so that he could accompany Pears, who was Britten’s partner, when the latter was either too busy composing against deadlines or, later, when his health incapacitated him.
Born at Ffynnongroew (sometimes spelt Ffynnongroyw), Flintshire, Osian was the son of a Methodist clergyman, Tomos Ellis, and his wife, Jenny (nee Lewis). From Denbigh grammar school he went to the Royal Academy of Music, London, as a pupil of Gwendolen Mason (who had performed with Ravel), later becoming professor of harp himself for three decades from 1959. For the first few years after his student days he was a freelance, playing solo recitals, chamber music – which he said he liked best – and lugging his instrument about with orchestras large and small.
In 1951 he was in the theatre orchestra at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he shared a house with the actors Hugh Griffith and Richard Burton. On the radio he was a member of Wally Stott’s orchestra accompanying Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe in The Goon Show.
Whereas most orchestral harpists are the first on to the platform to spend 10 minutes tuning their instruments before the concert begins, Osian came on at the same time as his colleagues. He said that early tuning was a waste of time, because when the hall filled up with the audience the temperature rose and changed the pitch of the harp. His playing was not only always impeccably in tune, but he projected his sound so that what he played was always vivid and easily heard, instead of the dim tinkle that so often prevailed in orchestras.
This projection and utter musical reliability ensured a rapid rise, so that by the time he was 30 he was well established. He was a regular member of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1994, and well regarded by all conductors.
In addition to solo recitals, he gave joint concerts with speakers of poetry, including Peggy Ashcroft, Margaret Rutherford, Flora Robson, Paul Robeson and Burton. Among the composers who wrote works for him were Gian Carlo Menotti, William Schuman, Robin Holloway and his fellow countrymen Alan Hoddinott and William Mathias.
Osian also sometimes sang a light baritone in his recitals, either arrangements of Welsh folk songs or penillion, semi-improvisations on Welsh poetry. Compositions for his own instrument included Diversions (1990), a fascinating competition piece for two harps, which he recorded playing both parts. He wrote The Story of the Harp in Wales (2008), was an honorary bard, and in 1971 was appointed CBE.
Though certainly genial company, Osian was not a good sailor, as became apparent on a journey to the Hague for a recital with Ashcroft. I found him in a corner crying in desperation: “Sink the boat, sink the boat.” After retiring, he returned to north Wales, living in Pwllheli, Gwynedd, where on Sundays he could be heard playing the organ in church.
In 1951 he married Rene Jones, a viola player, and they had two sons. Tomos, the younger of them, died in 2009, and Rene in 2012. He is survived by his other son, Richard, his grandchildren, David and Katie, and his sister Elfrys.
• Osian Gwynn Ellis, harpist, born 8 February 1928; died 6 January 2021
• John Amis died in 2013
• This article was amended on 3 February 2021, to correct the name of Paul Robeson.
