Rezso Seress Hungarian pianist and composer Date of Birth: 03.11.1899 Country: Hungary

Biography of Rezső Seress

Rezső Seress was a Hungarian pianist and composer who gained worldwide fame for writing the saddest song on earth, known as "Gloomy Sunday" or the "Hungarian Suicide Song". Born into a Jewish family in Budapest, which was then part of Austria-Hungary, he grew up in poverty and started working at a young age, but never achieved financial success. Despite never attending a music school, Seress taught himself to play the piano with one hand. It was his musical talent, greatly influenced by a life that lacked joy, that brought the composer to the attention of the world.

In 1933, in Paris, France, Seress returned to his apartment after an argument with his beloved. Within a few hours, he composed the melody for "Gloomy Sunday" and the lyrics were later written by Hungarian journalist and poet László Jávor. This melancholic ballad about death and the possibility of happiness in another world turned out to be remarkably melodic and emotionally resonant. It seemed that all the world's sorrow, not just Seress's own sadness, was concentrated in this one composition.

Strange and unexplainable events followed. A wave of suicides swept through Hungary. Young and old, rejected lovers - every time the police and onlookers found a copy of the sheet music for "Gloomy Sunday" at the scene of the incident. After the song began to be broadcast on the radio, the series of suicides continued. For example, a young man in Berlin shot himself at home immediately after listening to the song; his lover was also found dead at her home, with the score of Seress's composition nearby. A secretary in New York poisoned herself with gas while listening to "Gloomy Sunday" and in her suicide note, she requested to be buried to the same music. During World War II, discussions about the song died down. Seress himself spent several years in a concentration camp in Germany. After working as an actor in a circus, he had to leave due to a hand injury. While working as a pianist in small restaurants, he continued to write songs, but none of them overshadowed the success of "Gloomy Sunday". Although the song was not broadcast on the radio, interest in it only grew, and meanwhile, the number of victims increased.

Seress never gave interviews and worked a lot, despite receiving offers to emigrate to the United States as a talented composer and a Holocaust survivor. He remained loyal to Hungary. In his last years, he worked as a pianist in a dirty restaurant in a less desirable area of Budapest, frequented by prostitutes and criminals. Interestingly, one of the songs from his post-war period, the composition "Újra a Lánchídon", was written by order of the Hungarian Communist Party, but this collaboration did not last long.

Seress's life ended tragically. In 1968, he attempted suicide by jumping out of a window to the sound of "Gloomy Sunday", but survived. Just a few days later, while in the hospital, he hanged himself. His beloved, the same woman he had quarreled with in Paris in 1933, also took her own life. And "Gloomy Sunday" did not spare her either: the score was found among her last papers. To this day, there have been more than 10 cover versions of the famous composition. One of the most successful versions is by the renowned trip-hop group "Portishead". Other artists who have performed the song include Serge Gainsbourg, Sinéad O'Connor, and the "Blackmailers".

Shortly before his death, Rezső Seress admitted that writing this song made him unhappy. For over 30 years, he lived with a sense of guilt, knowing that he would never be able to write another hit.