Rezső Seress, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetRezső Seress
Hungarian pianist and composer
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Budapest, Hungary
About Rezső Seress
- Rezso Seress (Hungarian: ['r??ø? '??r???]; 3 November 1899 – 11 January 1968) was a Hungarian pianist and composer.
- Some sources give his birth name as Rudolf ("Rudi") Spitzer. Rezso Seress lived most of his life in poverty in Budapest, from where, being Jewish, he was taken to a labor camp by the Nazis 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 foúr (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. His most famous composition is Szomorú Vasárnap ("Gloomy Sunday"), written in 1933, which gained infamy as it became associated with a spate of suicides. 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; 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 increased his gloom. Seress committed suicide in Budapest in January 1968; he survived jumping out of a window, but later in the hospital choked himself to death with a wire.
- His obituary in the New York Times mentions the notorious reputation of "Gloomy Sunday":
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