Stephen Sondheim died hours after celebrating Thanksgiving with his friends.
‘The circumstances of his death were quite remarkable,’ a friend said, telling how the American composer behind some of Broadway’s greatest musicals dined on Thursday at a friend’s house near his Connecticut home.
‘He was frail but his usual wonderfully witty self, full of anecdotes and very lively. Things broke up at 9.30pm and he died at 1am,’ he said.
‘Sondheim essentially died for Thanksgiving surrounded by his closest friends. He was 100% present at the end of the meal. There was an overall feeling that he had a lot to learn. We should all be so lucky.’

Stephen Sondheim has been declared dead at 91. He was the genius behind musical theatre and The Mail on Sunday can confirm.
As tributes poured in for the composer and lyricist, London’s West End theatres announced that they would dim their lights for two minutes at 7pm tomorrow in his honour.
Sondheim was awarded many glamorous prizes for the theatre. Six of Sondheim’s musicals received Tony Awards. He won a Pulitzer Prize as well as an Academy Award, five Olivier Awards and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Fellow composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber said that he had always been ‘sort of in awe‘ of a man he described as ‘an absolute genius’ and a ‘titan’ of musical theatre.
Sondheim announced his talent at 27 by writing lyrics for Leonard Bernstein’s music in West Side Story – with treasures such as Somewhere (There’s a Place For Us) – and, two years later, Gypsy. His musical theatre hits included Sweeney Todd (Assassins) and Into The Woods.
More recently, he had been supportive of Steven Spielberg’s screen adaptation of West Side Story, out next month, and Terry Gilliam’s upcoming revival of Into The Woods. The Monty Python star last night told the MoS: ‘He was fearless and funny, full of sparkle and dry charm and his passing is a great loss especially for our production, as we shall never know if we succeeded in surprising him.’

Recording with Elizabeth Taylor and Stephen Sondheim in 1976. As tributes poured in for the composer and lyricist, London’s West End theatres announced that they would dim their lights for two minutes at 7pm tomorrow in his honour
Sondheim’s complex music and complicated lyrics are what attracted some of the most famous stars to collaborate with him, including A Little Night Music classic Send In The Clowns.
Dame Sheila Hancock, who starred as Mrs Lovett in the original 1980 London production of Sweeney Todd, said: ‘It was a terrifying joy to work with Sondheim.
‘Terrifying because of his all-consuming dedication and my desperate desire to keep up with his genius. Joyful because of his gentle understanding when I couldn’t.’
Dame Maureen Lipman, who played Madame Armfeldt in an acclaimed 2008 production of A Little Night Music, contrasted the composer’s belief in the power of love with his personal heartbreak.
Sondheim was known to hate his mother, who he psychologically abused from an early age. He also blamed him for his divorce from his father.
Dame Maureen said: ‘He who had known so little love in his early life taught us so much about its enduring power.’
The playwright Sir Tom Stoppard described Sondheim as ‘one of the immortals of what some people think of America’s greatest contribution to culture – the theatre musical’.

He is seen getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then President Obama in 2015. Sondheim was awarded many other prestigious theatre prizes. Six of Sondheim’s musicals received Tony Awards. His musicals won him a Pulitzer Prize and an Academy Award. He also received five Olivier Awards.