Rezső Seress

Seress Rezső

VII. District (ERZSÉBETVÁROS) Art & Personalities

A small figure, hunched melancholically over his instrument. Rezső Seress composed the world-famous, somber chanson «Szomorú vasárnap» (Gloomy Sunday) in 1933, which went down in music history as the ’suicide song’. The BBC withheld the sung version from broadcast for decades out of concern for wartime morale — the ban lasted from the early 1940s until 2002, though instrumental versions were always allowed.

Seress spent most of his life as a pianist at the Kispipa restaurant at Akácfa utca 38 – right there, on the façade, the statue hangs today. In 1968 he jumped from a window in Budapest. His own song never let go of him for the rest of his life – whether curse or fate is left open. Kolodko gave him an intimate, deeply sad memorial here. Some things cannot be played away.

A short historical recording of Seress himself survives – released on the album "Egy ember a Kispipából" (A Man from the Kispipa), a fitting title for a man who sat at the piano here for so many years.

AddressOn the wall of the Kispipa restaurant, Akácfa utca 38.

GPS47.499800, 19.065874

Open in OpenStreetMap

Historical recording on Spotify→

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