Rezső Seress (Hungarian: ''Seress Rezső,'' ; 3 November 1889 – 12 January 1968) was a Hungarian pianist and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

. Some sources give his birth name as Rudolf ("Rudi") Spitzer.

Biography

Rezső Seress lived most of his life in poverty in Budapest, from where, being Jewish, he was taken to a

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...

by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

during the Second 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, including ''Fizetek főúr'' (Waiter, bring me the bill), ''Én úgy szeretek részeg lenni'' (I love being drunk), and a song for the Hungarian Communist Party to commemorate the chain bridge crossing the river in Budapest, ''Újra a Lánchídon'' (Again on the chain bridge). His most famous composition is ''Szomorú Vasárnap'' (" Gloomy Sunday"), written in 1933, which gained infamy as it became associated with a spate of

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

s. 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 his

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

, 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, bohemian spirits 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 the Ukraine, his mother didn't, which intensified his gloom. Seress committed

in Budapest in January 1968; he survived jumping out of a window, but later in the hospital, he choked himself to death with a wire. His obituary in '' The New York Times'' mentions the notorious reputation of "Gloomy Sunday":

References

External links

* 1889 births 1968 suicides Hungarian composers Hungarian male composers Hungarian Jews Hungarian pianists Musicians from Budapest Suicides by jumping in Hungary 20th-century composers 20th-century pianists Male pianists 20th-century Hungarian male musicians {{pianist-stub