All the best people play bridge. Stephen Sondheim, who died two weeks ago, was mad about the game. In his memoir Big Deal, the concert pianist and bridge professional Augie Boehm recalls playing with him in a game organised by Alan Truscott, the New York Times’s bridge columnist. Sondheim had at first declined the invitation, fearing the others would be too good for him. As it happened, Truscott and Boehm had recently collaborated on a musical review of bridge songs. When Truscott asked Sondheim if he could send him some lyrics to look at, Sondheim changed his mind about coming. ‘If you have the temerity to send me your lyrics,’ he wrote back, ‘I can summon the nerve to play bridge with you.’ They got a suitable fourth and Sondheim ended up impressing them all. This is the hand Truscott wrote up in his column:
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