Rezső Seress

The native form of thispersonal nameisSeress Rezső.This article usesWestern name orderwhen mentioning individuals.

Rezső Seress
Born	(1889-11-03)3 November 1889 Budapest,Kingdom of Hungary,Austria-Hungary
Died	12 January 1968(1968-01-12)(aged 78) Budapest,Hungarian People's Republic
Occupations	Pianist composer
Years active	1925–1968
Notable work	"Gloomy Sunday"

Rezső Seress(Hungarian:Seress Rezső,[ˈʃɛrɛʃː ˈrɛʒøː];3 November 1889– 12 January 1968) was aHungarianpianistandcomposer.Some sources give his birth name asRudolf( "Rudi" )Spitzer.

Biography

Rezső Seress lived most of his life in poverty inBudapest,from where, beingJewish,he was taken to alabor campby theNazisduring theSecond World War.He survived the camp and after employment in the theatre and the circus, where he was a trapeze artist, he concentrated on songwriting and singing after an injury. Seress taught himself to play the piano with only one hand. He composed many songs, includingFizetek főúr(Waiter, bring me the bill),Én úgy szeretek részeg lenni(I love being drunk), and a song for theHungarian Communist Partyto commemorate the chain bridge crossing the river in Budapest,Újra a Lánchídon(Again on the chain bridge).

His most famous composition isSzomorú Vasárnap( "Gloomy Sunday"), written in 1933, which gained infamy as it became associated with a spate ofsuicides.

Seress felt a strong loyalty to Hungary, and one reason for his poverty while having a world-famous song was that he never wished to go to the USA to collect hisroyalties,instead staying as pianist at the Kispipa restaurant in his home town. This restaurant had a pipe stove at the centre of its dining room and was remarkably cold for a restaurant. The place was a favourite of prostitutes, musicians,bohemianspirits and the Jewish working class.

As his fame began to wane, along with his loyalty to the communist party, Seress plunged into depression. Though he himself survived the Nazi forced labour in theUkraine,his mother didn't, which intensified his gloom.

Seress committedsuicideinBudapestin January 1968; he survived jumping out of a window, but later in the hospital, he choked himself to death with a wire. His obituary inThe New York Timesmentions the notorious reputation of "Gloomy Sunday":

Budapest, January 13.

Rezsoe [sic] Seress, whose dirge-like song hit, "Gloomy Sunday" was blamed for touching off a wave of suicides during the nineteen-thirties, has ended his own life as a suicide it was learned today. Authorities disclosed today that Mr. Seress jumped from a window of his small apartment here last Sunday, shortly after his 69th [sic] birthday.
The decade of the nineteen-thirties was marked by severe economic depression and the political upheaval that was to lead to World War II. The melancholy song written by Mr. Seress, with words by his friend, Ladislas Javor, a poet, declares at its climax, "My heart and I have decided to end it all." It was blamed for a sharp increase in suicides, and Hungarian officials finally prohibited it.
In America, where Paul Robeson introduced an English version, some radio stations and nightclubs forbade its performance.

Mr. Seress complained that the success of "Gloomy Sunday" actually increased his unhappiness, because he knew he would never be able to write a second hit.

— The New York Times,January 13, 1968,

External links

• Rezső SeressatIMDb