The Welsh harpist Osian Ellis has died aged 92 on January 5, 2021 at his home in Pwllheli, North Wales. He was internationally acknowledged as the leading harpist of his generation and his classic 1962 recording of Ravel's Introduction and Allegro for L'oiseau-Lyre with the Melos Ensemble is still generally regarded as the finest ever made.  In a long and varied career a highlight remains his close association with Benjamin Britten which resulted in the Suite for Harp in 1969, arguably the greatest solo harp work of the 20^th century.

Osian Ellis was born on February 8, 1928 at Ffynnongroyw in Flintshire where his father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister and his mother an amateur harpist. He grew up within an indigenous folk-based musical culture in which it was just as natural for a boy to play the harp as it was for him to play football – the young Ellis excelled at both. He was largely self-taught as a harpist but his first teacher, Alwena Roberts, could guide him in both folk and classical traditions and in 1943 he won a major prize at the National Eisteddfod in Bangor which in turn led to an invaluable scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Gwendolen Mason. She was the leading British harpist of the inter-war and immediate post-war periods and would visit the Eisteddfod in Wales every year to look for promising young harpists: Ellis soon became her prize pupil and having quickly dominated the harp world in London he was her natural successor as Professor of Harp at the Academy – a position he held from 1959 until 1989. For these crucial decades he was instrumental in changing the perception of the harp as a versatile instrument with a major role to play outside the orchestra, and guided the careers of generations of younger harpists. But from 1961 onwards he was also Principal Harp of the London Symphony Orchestra with which he played under all the great conductors of the period. He continued in this role until his retirement in 1994.

It was in January 1959 that Osian Ellis met Benjamin Britten for the first time, after a performance of A Ceremony of Carols in Westminster Cathedral in which the boys of the celebrated choir were conducted by George Malcolm. An invitation to play at the 1960 Aldeburgh Festival followed and this involved giving the premiere of the elaborate harp part in A Midsummer Night's Dream in the newly-enlarged Jubilee Hall. Although he had written brilliant and taxing harp parts throughout his career to date, Britten now began tailoring every new work with Osian Ellis's particular skills in mind. These included a rare control of finger-damping on the strings and an instinctive mastery of tone and technique which were thought by many to be peerless. Ellis's membership of the specialist Melos Ensemble (with leading members of the English Chamber Orchestra) led to its incorporation within the spectacular forces deployed for the premiere of the War Requiem at Coventry Cathedral in 1962 and its subsequent best-selling LP recording.

From this point onwards Osian Ellis was an indispensable member of Britten's 'home team' and featured notably in the premieres and first recordings of Curlew River (1964), The Burning Fiery Furnace (1966), The Prodigal Son (1968), Owen Wingrave (1970) and Death in Venice (1973). In 1969 Britten invited Ellis to give a solo recital at that year's Aldeburgh Festival and gave him carte blanche to invite any composer he wished to compose a new work for him: adding, tongue-in-cheek, that a certain local composer was especially anxious to do so! The Suite for Harp, Op 83 was dedicated 'to Ellis' and the last of its five movements pays the harpist a very personal tribute in being variations on a Welsh hymn-tune. When Britten's ill-fated heart operation in 1972 put paid to his playing the piano any more for Peter Pears, it was eventually decided that he would form a duo instead with Osian Ellis. The first work of Britten's tragically short-lived return to composition in 1974 was Canticle V: The Death of Saint Narcissus, an Eliot setting for tenor and harp. This was to be followed by A Birthday Hansel (a Burns cycle for HM The Queen Mother's 75^th birthday) in 1975 and a final group of folk-song settings in 1976.

Osian Ellis also worked closely with the leading Welsh composers of the time. He started playing music written for him by Alun Hoddinott as early as 1955 (a lost Impromptu) and in 1957 they collaborated on a Concerto commissioned by Ellis to be premiered at the Cheltenham Festival with the Halle Orchestra conducted by Hoddinott. This score was revised in 1970 prior to a recording in 1972 with the LSO and David Atherton. In 1970 the Llandaff Festival commissioned William Mathias to compose a Harp Concerto for Ellis and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and this was recorded in 1973, again with the LSO and Atherton. This work featured in 1972 at the first North Wales Music Festival which Mathias was to organise annually in St Asaph Cathedral until his death in 1992. Ellis returned in 1993 to play the Concerto at a special concert in memory of Mathias with the RLPO. Among many other composers who wrote works specially for Ellis were Malcolm Arnold, William Alwyn, Elizabeth Maconchy and Robin Holloway, whose Ballad for harp and small orchestra was premiered at the 1985 Cheltenham Festival.

Osian Ellis's first commercial recordings in 1954/5 were two discs of Welsh Folk Music for the newly-established Delyse label and featured his early partnership with Welsh cellist David Ffrangcon Thomas. The discs reveal several facets of Ellis's artistry: harpist, accompanist, singer and arranger/composer. Such versatility remained throughout his career but in 1959 he was propelled into another dimension with his first disc for L'oiseau-Lyre in which he collaborated with Thurston Dart and the Philomusica of London under Granville Jones on pioneering recordings of Handel Harp Concertos. This won a Grand Prix du Disque in 1960 and established Ellis as a master of the Baroque repertoire. But in 1961 he went on for the Paris-based label to record a sequence of early 20^th century French music by Ravel, Debussy, Roussel and Ropartz with the Melos Ensemble and this also won a Grand Prix when released in 1962. Three classic solo albums followed in the later 1960s for L'oiseau-Lyre: one of 17^th/18^th Century Harp Muisc, another of 19^th/20^th Century Harp Music and one of Songs with harp which he sang himself.

Ellis's recording of Mozart's Flute and Harp Concerto with William Bennett and the ECO/Raymond Leppard (ASV) sits alongside others he made with Claude Monteux/ASMF/Marriner (Phillips) and Hubert Barwahser/LSO/Colin Davis (Phillips), all of which established a benchmark for harp playing in this work. He recorded Britten's A Ceremony of Carols with King's College Choir, Cambridge and David Willcocks but also with the Vienna Boys' Choir – for decades he was simply the 'go-to' international harpist. He first recorded with Benjamin Britten conducting in September 1959, when with the LSO (before officially joining as Principal Harp) he appeared as one of seven instrumental soloists in the premiere recording of the Nocturne, Op 60 with Peter Pears. Ellis subsequently featured in virtually every Britten recording when the orchestra or ensemble required a harp and he completed a solo disc with Peter Pears at Snape Maltings early in 1976 which also included his definitive interpretation of the Harp Suite. Other contemporary composers whose music Ellis recorded include Panufnik and Jersild and many Gramophone readers will share my soft spot for William Alwyn's Lyra Angelica in the classic recording on Lyrita with Alwyn conducting the LPO. In later life Ellis made several recordings with the Sain Label near Caernarfon of his own compositions for harp and voice, the last of which appeared in 2019 a year after his 90^th birthday.

Osian Ellis was also active as a composer, arranger and scholar and these activities were concentrated mainly on his musical life in Wales, where he was a household name and living legend. Within the more colourful sides of his varied performing career in the London of the 1950s he played frequently at the London Palladium, including a Royal Variety Performance featuring Bob Hope, and was a regular member of the Wally Stott Orchestra playing for countless recordings of the Goon Show which continue to be broadcast to this day. Ellis was a generous collaborator and friend to fellow artists. One story related by a colleague recalls a Wigmore Hall concert in the 1950s by his distinguished younger contemporary Ann Griffiths. One of her harp's strings broke dramatically and the recital was in jeopardy – until Ellis stood up in the audience, said that he had a suitable replacement string in his pocket and proceeded to the platform to repair the damage on the spot.

In his later years he retired from harp playing to care for his wife Rene for fifteen years at their final home in Pwllheli on the Lleyn Peninsula in Gwynedd. Following her death he emerged again at the time of his 90^th birthday in 2018 with renewed activity as a composer, singer and performer. He was also a great supporter of the William Mathias Music Centre in Galeri, Caernarfon and in 2018 was President of the Wales International Harp Festival held there in his honour. Its Director, his pupil Elinor Bennett delivered the eulogy at his private funeral in Aberdaron on January 15, 2021. On hearing the news of his death, composer Robin Holloway commented simply ‘...great artist...lovely man...’ words which all who knew Osian Ellis will echo appreciatively.