Last modified on Fri 19 Feb 2021 16.42 EST
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 was performed 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.