When Stephen Sondheim died in November, theaccoladeswere prompt and voluminous. For a creative figure who had single-handedly transformed the look, sound and feel of the Broadway musical — who had interjected it with a new level of psychological realism and thematic boldness — that was only natural.

There were elegies to the dexterity with which Sondheim’s stage works had ranged across subjects and dramatic styles. There were celebrations of his wizardry with lyrics, those cascading lines full of intricate internal rhymes and nuanced cross-references.

My first thought was for the music.

It isn’t as though Sondheim’s gifts as a composer have been given short shrift, exactly, except that yes they have. The other aspects of his creative genius are so overt — so immediately apparent to the eye and mind — that it can be easy to overlook the delicacy, nuance and originality that also went into his melodic construction, his rhythmic palette and especially his harmonic choices.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve long been a devotee of“Liaisons,”the huge commissioning project and group tribute that new-music pianist Anthony de Mare created. He will perform it Sunday, March 6, in a recital at the Green Music Center at Sonoma State University.

Over the course of many years, beginning in the mid-1990s and continuing to the present day, de Mare reached out to an array of contemporary composers — from senior figures such as Steve Reich and Meredith Monk to younger artists such as Paola Prestini and Conrad Tao — and invited them to take part. The assignment was simple: Pick a Sondheim song and write a piece for solo piano that treats the material in whatever way seems appropriate.

The resulting collection, which has recently expanded to an astonishing 50 pieces, is a testament to the hold Sondheim had over three generations of mostly classical composers — and a demonstration of how much raw material his songs offer to work with.

“One of the original missions of this project was to show Sondheim’s importance as a composer,” de Mare said in a phone interview. “For so many years, he was just being labeled this great lyricist. But I’ve always felt he’s one of the great American composers.”

As the project took shape, de Mare found that this was by no means a minority opinion in the musical world.

“It turns out that all these composers have basically said in interviews that they were either secretly influenced by Sondheim or they’ve admired him throughout their lives and careers.”

One of those admirers is San Francisco composer Jake Heggie, who turned “A Weekend in the Country” — the rollicking, multifaceted Act 1 finale from “A Little Night Music” — into a keyboard showcase modeled on Liszt’s operatic paraphrases.

“Mozart would have envied that ensemble, which is the biggest compliment I can pay it,” he said. “I’m sure that if Mozart could hear that piece he’d say, ‘Steve, I’m jealous.’

“The thing that’s amazing about it is that everyone stays true to the musical character he has set up for them, so that even when you have them singing on top of each other, you still know exactly what’s going on. That’s what opera does best.”

Composer Andy Akiho, who wrote a vivid treatment for specially prepared piano of the expository opening scene of “Into the Woods,” was a late arrival to Sondheim’s music. Before de Mare reached out to him, he said in a phone interview, he was almost completely unfamiliar with it.

“I don’t know too much about Broadway. But when the invitation came, I spent the weekend listening to it, and I was blown away. For my piece, I was trying to get the piano to capture the personality of each of the characters.”

De Mare’s recital will offer just a dozen selections from “Liaisons,” including new contributions by Stephen Hough, Christopher Cerrone and Kevin Puts. But to listen to the bulk of the set on athree-disc 2015 releaseon ECM New Series is to marvel at the way Sondheim’s material can be adapted to suit each distinctive compositional voice.

Reich’s patterned minimalist version of “Finishing the Hat” from “Sunday in the Park With George,” for instance, is a perfect blend of the two sensibilities. Mary Ellen Childs lends a rhapsodic ripple to “Now,” from “A Little Night Music.”

For “I’m Still Here,” the great “Follies” anthem, the late Frederic Rzewski crafted a set of wonderfully ornate and speculative variations that call to mind his creative technique in such showpieces as “The People United Will Never Be Defeated!” Each composer finds in Sondheim’s music what is most relevant.

Composer David Rakowski, in adapting “The Ladies Who Lunch” from “Company,” said he discovered unsuspected nuances in the music as soon as he began work on the project.

“Because I didn’t have the lead sheet, I began by transcribing the song from the recording,” he said. “I found it was way more subtle than I’d thought — the modulation to D-flat just before the end is masterful! I had never noticed it before.”

For de Mare, too, it is Sondheim’s use of harmony that is most striking.

“It’s the richness of how he builds the chords. Some of them are drawn from Ravel. People say he’s a dissonant composer, but I don’t hear it that way. I hear these harmonies as rich and enveloping, and oftentimes the harmony comments on the lyrics.”

与此同时,我们回the lyrics again — because the truth is that Sondheim’s music and lyrics are so intertwined that it’s largely futile to try to separate them.

“Liaisons” puts the focus on the music, which is only natural in treatments for solo piano. But if you know the songs at all, the lyrics are always there — tacit and unspoken, making their presence felt like a phantom limb — and you can tell that each composer has them in mind as well.

Which in turn is to say that trying to distinguish Sondheim’s achievements as a lyricist and a composer is probably a chump’s game. The music gives shape and breath to the lyrics, which adapt the contours of the music, in an endless cycle of give and take. The two strains, ultimately, are one.

Anthony de Mare:“Liaisons.” 3 p.m. Sunday, March 6. $30-$40. Schroeder Hall, Green Music Center, Sonoma State University,1801 E. Cotati Ave., Rohnert Park.707-664-4246.gmc.sonoma.edu